Users of Google "must recalibrate their thinking on what Google is and how information is returned to them," warns an Assistant Professor at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill.

In a new book titled The Propagandists' Playbook, they're warning that simple link-filled search results have been transformed by "Google's latest desire to answer our questions for us, rather than requiring us to click on the returns." The trouble starts when Google returns inaccurate answers "that often disrupt democratic participation, confirm unsubstantiated claims, and are easily manipulatable by people looking to spread falsehoods." By adding all of these features, Google — as well as competitors such as DuckDuckGo and Bing, which also summarize content — has effectively changed the experience from an explorative search environment to a platform designed around verification, replacing a process that enables learning and investigation with one that is more like a fact-checking service.... The problem is, many rely on search engines to seek out information about more convoluted topics. And, as my research reveals, this shift can lead to incorrect returns... Worse yet, when errors like this happen, there is no mechanism whereby users who notice discrepancies can flag it for informational review....

The trouble is, many users still rely on Google to fact-check information, and doing so might strengthen their belief in false claims. This is not only because Google sometimes delivers misleading or incorrect information, but also because people I spoke with for my research believed that Google's top search returns were "more important," "more relevant," and "more accurate," and they trusted Google more than the news — they considered it to be a more objective source....

This leads to what I refer to in my book, The Propagandists' Playbook, as the "IKEA effect of misinformation." Business scholars have found that when consumers build their own merchandise, they value the product more than an already assembled item of similar quality — they feel more competent and therefore happier with their purchase. Conspiracy theorists and propagandists are drawing on the same strategy, providing a tangible, do-it-yourself quality to the information they provide. Independently conducting a search on a given topic makes audiences feel like they are engaging in an act of self-discovery when they are actually participating in a scavenger-hunt engineered by those spreading the lies....

Rather than assume that returns validate truth, we must apply the same scrutiny we've learned to have toward information on social media.
Another problem the article points out: "Googling the exact same phrase that you see on Twitter will likely return the same information you saw on Twitter.

"Just because it's from a search engine doesn't make it more reliable."

What do you when people hate your $10 billion selfie? "Mark Zuckerberg, in response to a torrent of critical memes mocking the graphics of Meta's newest project, has heard his critics — and changed his selfie," reports CNN: Zuckerberg debuted Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality social app, in France and Spain earlier this week, sharing a somewhat flat, goofy digital avatar in front of an animated Eiffel Tower and la Sagrada Família.

The internet immediately jumped in, mocking what many users viewed as (hopefully) preliminary graphics for a venture that Meta has spent at least $10 billion in the last year.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose compared the graphics to "worse than a 2008 Wii game" on Twitter. Slate used the term " buttcheeks." Twitter was less kind: "eye-gougingly ugly" and "an international laughing stock" popping up. Many compared it to early 90's graphics and pointed out how lifeless and childish the Zuckerberg selfie looked. It quickly won the designation "dead eyes."

Well, Zuckerberg has apparently seen the memes, because on Friday he announced there are major updates coming — along with new avatar graphics.
In a CNBC report on how Zuckerberg "is getting dragged on the internet for how ugly the graphics of this game are," they'd actually quoted a Forbes headline that asked, "Does Mark Zuckerberg not understand how bad his metaverse is?"

It's a free and open-source, cross-platform FTP application that allows secure file transfering — and it's making an old-school protocol cool again, according to a recent blog post.

Started about 21 years ago — and downloaded by millions each year — FileZilla remains "committed to their role in liberating technology, by making it accessible, open and also secure," according to the blog post. But it also explains how FileZilla has beefed up that security through a collaboration with the internet freedom nonprofit, the Open Technology Fund (or "OTF"): Over the past year, FileZilla has utilised support from OTF to undertake two activities that enhanced and ensured the security of their tools. The first was integrating FileZilla Server with Let's Encrypt, a free, automated, and open source certificate authority that ensures secure communication between the two end-points sending or receiving a file via FileZilla.... Secondly, FileZilla ran a penetration test, a service offered by OTF's Red Team Lab. A team of independent researchers attempted to force access to the FileZilla server to see if they could gain control. These researchers were highly skilled, and the testing was extensive. The team conducting the test only found very minor security vulnerabilities that FileZilla were able to fix immediately. As a result of this process, anyone wanting to use the FileZilla software can trust that it has been cross-scrutinised by a third party and found to be secure....

FileZilla respects users' confidentiality: they do not track your behaviour, nor sell your data to other companies. While they do have advertisements on their website, they are posted exactly as advertisements would be posted in a newspaper. Nobody knows that you are reading the advertisements, or that you decided to call or connect to the advertised website. The advertisement has simply been attached to the webpage, without any underlying tracking.... . "Our mission hasn't changed in over 20 years: design, develop, maintain and enhance free tools to securely transfer files with ease and reliability," said Tim Kosse, FileZilla Lead Developer. This decision was a political one taken by FileZilla, to always preserve the freedom of their tools, and of their users. "We aren't the typical commercial open-source venture that starts doing things for free, and over time, closes this and that to make money" said Roberto Galoppini, FileZilla Director of Strategy. "While you might not see FileZilla listed at the NYSE [New York Stock Exchange] any time soon, the freedom of our tools will never be questioned...."

[I]f you work in an industry that requires the secure transfer of sensitive files, or if you simply have personal photographs or videos you want to keep confidential, using proprietary platforms to share or store them can put your information at risk of being exposed.... FileZilla offers an alternative that is secure and private. Their tools are developed by a team that is deeply invested in protecting users' confidentiality, and liberating technology is central to their work and decision-making....

At the same time, projects like FileZilla remind us that there exists a global community of technologists, activists, coders, bloggers, journalists, software developers, and mindful internet users making internet freedom a lived reality and daily practice. Supporting, experimenting with and using free and open source tools, such as the FileZilla client and server, enables us to disinvest from the capitalist pursuit of corporate control of technology and unchecked surveillance of our data.

Rather, we can step into alignment with an alternative, parallel narrative being created by a community of resistance that is grounded in principles of cooperation, solidarity, commons and openness.

A local news report called it "a futuristic dream, now a reality in Las Vegas: self-driving vehicles moving customers up and down the Las Vegas strip." Lyft's ride-hailing service now lets customers book Motional's all-electric (and autonomous driving) IONIQ 5.

Not everyone's sold. "Love technology — love it, promote it — but we don't need to replace every human," said one person interviewed on the street. But "the digital wave continues to sweep Las Vegas," the newscast points out, with the car company's director of commercial fleet operations insisting it will ultimately make transportation more affordable, sustainable, and reliable. "We look at this as an opportunity to really show that robotaxis are the best way for people to get around," he says, noting Vegas drivers have to contend with lots of night-time driving, bright lights, unusually wide lanes and big intersections.

The city once adopted the slogan "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," and some passengers might appreciate the extra privacy of a truly driverless vehicle. Passengers "for the time being, will be accompanied by two safety drivers in the event of an error," according to news reports, but that's expected to change soon: "Motional and Lyft have a clear path to widespread commercialization of Level 4 autonomous vehicles," said Karl Iagnemma, Motional's president and CEO. "We've led the industry in commercial operations for years, and today's launch signals we're on track to deliver a fully driverless service next year...."

Upon arrival, riders who order the IONIQ 5 can unlock the doors to the vehicle using the Lyft mobile app. Once inside the vehicle, customers can start the ride or contact customer support by using the new in-car Lyft AV app [on a touchscreen for passengers]. By making these new features available now, despite the presence of the two safety drivers, Lyft hopes to solicit customer feedback and refine the new tools before the service goes fully driverless in 2023.

Lyft and Motional have been piloting autonomous rides in other vehicles in Las Vegas since 2018, with more than 100,000 autonomous rides provided thus far, over 95% of which have received five-star ratings, according to the companies. Feedback gathered on the new IONIQ 5 autonomous vehicle over the coming months will help to inform Lyft's launch of fully driverless e-hail trips in Las Vegas sometime next year.

After that, the company plans to expand the driverless, e-hail service to various other markets throughout the country.

Apple is advising iOS and iPadOS users to update to the latest software version to patch two security holes that could allow an application to execute arbitrary code with kernel privileges. They also issued a patch for WebKit, the browser that powers Safari and all third-party browsers on iOS. For this vulnerability, Apple says that "processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution."

"With two major security fixes, we recommend all iPhone users update to iOS 15.6.1 immediately and all iPad users update to iPadOS 15.6.1," writes Chance Miller via 9to5Mac. "You can do so by heading to the Settings app, choosing General, then choosing Software Update."

Australia's government said on Friday it plans to introduce new regulations targeting vehicle carbon emissions to boost the uptake of electric cars, as it looks to catch up with other developed economies. From a report: Just 2% of cars sold in Australia are electric compared with 15% in Britain and 17% in Europe, and the country risked becoming a dumping ground for vehicles that can't be sold elsewhere, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said. Apart from Russia, Australia is the only OECD country to either not have or be developing fuel efficiency standards, which encourage manufacturers to supply more electric and no-emission vehicles, he said. "To me, this is ultimately about choice. And policy settings are denying Australians real choice of good, affordable, no emissions cars," Bowen told an electric vehicle summit in Canberra. The government will release a discussion paper for consultation in September, with a focus on increasing EV uptake, improving affordability, and looking at options for fuel efficiency standards.

Young adults in the UK are spending more time scrolling on social media site TikTok than watching broadcast television, according to an Ofcom report on Wednesday that highlights the growing generational divide in media habits. From a report: In its annual survey of consumption trends, the media regulator found that those aged 16 to 24 spent an average of 53 minutes a day viewing traditional broadcast TV, just a third of the level a decade ago. By contrast, people over the age of 65 spent seven times as long in front of channels such as BBC One or ITV, viewing almost six hours' worth of broadcast TV a day -- a figure that has risen since 2011. The faster take-up of streaming services and social media among young people poses an ever greater challenge to broadcasters as they try to cope with an economic slowdown, satisfy their most loyal older viewers and invest to keep pace with fast-changing consumption habits.

An anonymous reader shares a report: 'Beware in-app browsers' is a good rule of thumb for any privacy conscious mobile app user -- given the potential for an app to leverage its hold on user attention to snoop on what you're looking at via browser software it also controls. But eyebrows are being raised over the behavior of TikTok's in-app browser after independent privacy research by developer Felix Krause found the social network's iOS app injecting code that could enable it to monitor all keyboard inputs and taps. Aka, keylogging.

"TikTok iOS subscribes to every keystroke (text inputs) happening on third party websites rendered inside the TikTok app. This can include passwords, credit card information and other sensitive user data," warns Krause in a blog post detailing the findings. "We can't know what TikTok uses the subscription for, but from a technical perspective, this is the equivalent of installing a keylogger on third party websites." [emphasis his]

After publishing a report last week -- focused on the potential for Meta's Facebook and Instagram iOS apps to track users of their in-app browsers -- Krause followed up by launching a tool, called InAppBrowser.com, that lets mobile app users get details of code that's being injected by in-app browsers by listing JavaScript commands executed by the app as it renders the page. (NB: He warns the tool does not necessarily list all JavaScript commands executed nor can it pick up tracking an app might be doing using native code -- so at best it's offering a glimpse of potentially sketchy activities.)

Google has been challenged by an algorithm that could solve a problem faster than its Sycamore quantum computer, which it used in 2019 to claim the first example of "quantum supremacy" -- the point at which a quantum computer can complete a task that would be impossible for ordinary computers. Google concedes that its 2019 record won't stand, but says that quantum computers will win out in the end. From a report: Sycamore achieved quantum supremacy in a task that involves verifying that a sample of numbers output by a quantum circuit have a truly random distribution, which it was able to complete in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. The Google team said that even the world's most powerful supercomputer at the time, IBM's Summit, would take 10,000 years to achieve the same result. Now, Pan Zhang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and his colleagues have created an improved algorithm for a non-quantum computer that can solve the random sampling problem much faster, challenging Google's claim that a quantum computer is the only practical way to do it. The researchers found that they could skip some of the calculations without affecting the final output, which dramatically reduces the computational requirements compared with the previous best algorithms. The researchers ran their algorithm on a cluster of 512 GPUs, completing the task in around 15 hours. While this is significantly longer than Sycamore, they say it shows that a classical computer approach remains practical.

Automated transcription service Otter is making some big changes to its offerings for both free and paying customers. Mostly, the company is downgrading its features -- reducing the number of audio imports users can make; the length of audio they can transcribe each month, and so on -- though it is giving free users access to some new tools. From a report: One of the biggest changes, though, is that free users will no longer be able to access their full back catalogue of recordings. Instead, they'll only have access to the most recent 25. The rest will be "archived" -- that is, they'll still exist on Otter's servers, but users will have to either delete other conversations to access them, or pay to upgrade to Otter's "pro" plan. This and other changes to the service will kick in on September 27th, so any free users with more than 25 recordings may want to download their back catalogue before then. After September 27th, free users will still be able to access these recordings (by downloading then deleting audio files one at a time) but it'll be more of a hassle.

One of the University of Michigan Library's most prized possessions, which appeared to be a Galileo manuscript, is now thought to be the work of a 20th-century forger. From a report: Galileo Galilei was peering through a new telescope in 1610 when he noticed something strange: several bright objects flickering around the planet Jupiter that seemed to change positions nightly. His discovery, of moons orbiting Jupiter, was a major crack in the notion, widely held since antiquity, that everything in the universe revolved around the Earth. The finding, which was condemned by the Catholic Church, helped prove the theory of a sun-centered solar system. For decades the University of Michigan Library has prized a manuscript related to the discovery, describing it as "one of the great treasures" in its collection. At the top is the draft of a letter signed by Galileo describing the new telescope, and on the bottom are sketches plotting the positions of the moons around Jupiter -- "the first observational data that showed objects orbiting a body other than the earth," the library described it.

At least it would be if it were authentic. After Nick Wilding, a historian at Georgia State University, uncovered evidence suggesting the manuscript was a fake, the library investigated and determined that he was right: The university said Wednesday it had concluded that its treasured manuscript "is in fact a 20th-century forgery." "It was pretty gut-wrenching when we first learned our Galileo was not actually a Galileo," Donna L. Hayward, the interim dean of the university's libraries, said in an interview. But since the purpose of any library is to expand knowledge, she said, the university had decided to be forthright about its findings and publicly announce the forgery. "To sweep it under the rug is counter to what we stand for."

"Dodge has given its electric Charger Daytona SRT Concept a set of fake exhausts and one of the loudest artificial V8 noises we've ever heard," writes Harry Waring via CarThrottle. From the report: The car features some interestingly named components that make it stand out from the rest of the EV crowd, such as the "Rupt" simulated multispeed transmission and a "Fratzonic" chambered 'exhaust' which emits a 125 dB "Dark Matter" noise (yes, we're serious). According to Dodge, the battery-powered machine is supposedly as loud as a Hellcat with its supercharged Hemi V8. The unusual names continue with the 800V "Banshee" propulsion system, which delivers power to the car's 21-inch wheels. We're yet to hear about official performance figures, but stopping power will be provided by six-piston brake callipers. The 'Fratzog' logo sits on the car's front and rear ends, previously used on vehicles produced by Dodge between 1962 and 1976, now representing the brand's electrified future. You can watch (and hear) it in action here.

e-HallPass, a digital system that students have to use to request to leave their classroom and which takes note of how long they've been away, including to visit the bathroom, has spread into at least a thousand schools around the United States. Motherboard reports: On Monday, a since deleted tweet went viral in which someone claimed that their school was preparing to introduce e-HallPass, and described it as "the program where we track how long, at what time, and how often each child goes to the restroom and store that information on third party servers run by a private for-profit company." Motherboard then identified multiple schools across the U.S. that appear to use the technology by searching the web for instruction manuals, announcements, and similar documents from schools that mentioned the technology. Those results included K-12 schools such as Franklin Regional Middle School, Fargo Public Schools, River City High School, Loyalsock Township School District, and Cabarrus County Schools. Also schools Motherboard found that appear to use e-HallPass include Mehlville High School, Eagle County School District, Hopatcong Borough Schools, and Pope Francis Preparatory School. These schools are spread across the country, with some in California, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina. Eduspire, the company that makes e-HallPass, told trade publication EdSurge in March that 1,000 schools use the system. Brian Tvenstrup, president of Eduspire, told the outlet that the company's biggest obstacle to selling the product "is when a school isn't culturally ready to make these kinds of changes yet."

The system itself works as a piece of software installed on a computer or mobile device. Students request a pass through the software and the teacher then approves it. The tool promises "hall omniscience" with the ability to "always know who has a pass and who doesn't (without asking the student!)," according to the product's website. Admins can then access data collected through the software, and view a live dashboard showing details on all passes. e-HallPass can also stop meet-ups of certain students and limit the amount of passes going to certain locations, the website adds, explicitly mentioning "vandalism and TikTok challenges." Many of the schools Motherboard identified appear to use e-HallPass specifically on Chromebooks, according to student user guides and similar documents hosted on the schools' websites, though it also advertises that it can be used to track students on their personal cell phones.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: [Swedish car publication Vi Bilagare] tested 11 new cars alongside a 2005 Volvo C70, timing how long it took to perform a list of tasks in each car. These included turning on the seat heater, increasing the cabin temperature, turning on the defroster, adjusting the radio, resetting the trip computer, turning off the screen, and dimming the instruments. The old Volvo was the clear winner. "The four tasks is handled within ten seconds flat, during which the car is driven 306 meters at 110 km/h [1,004 feet at 68 mph]," VB found. Most of the other cars required twice as long, or more, to complete the same tasks. VB says that "one important aspect of this test is that the drivers had time to get to know the cars and their infotainment systems before the test started." VB lays the blame for the shift from buttons to screens with designers who "want a 'clean' interior with minimal switchgear."

Even with touchscreens, though, we can see in the spread of scores VB gave to different all-touch cars that design matters. You'll find almost no buttons in a Tesla Model 3, and we called out the lack of buttons in the Subaru Outback in our review, but both performed quite well in VB's tests. And VW's use of capacitive touch (versus physical) for the controls on the center stack appears to be exactly the wrong decision in terms of usability, with the ID.3 right at the bottom of the pack in VB's scores. I'm not surprised that the BMW iX scored well; although it has a touchscreen, you're not obligated to use it. BMW's rotary iDrive controller falls naturally to hand, and there are permanent controls arrayed around it under a sliver of wood that both looks and feels interesting. It's an early implementation of what the company calls shy tech, and it's a design trend I am very much looking forward to seeing evolve in the future.

Google announced today that it's rolling out new Search updates over the next few weeks that will aim to make it easier for people to find high-quality content. TechCrunch reports: The new ranking improvements will work to reduce the amount of low-quality or unoriginal content that ranks high in search results. Google says that the update will especially target content that has been created primarily for ranking on search engines, known as "SEO-first" content, rather than human-first content. The company's tests have shown that the update will improve the results users find when searching for content like online educational materials, as well as arts and entertainment, shopping and tech-related content.

The new updates should help reduce the number of low-quality results from websites that have learned to game the system with content that is optimized to rank high in search results. Google says users should start to see content that is actually useful rank more prominently in search results. The company plans to refine its systems and build on these improvements over time. "If you search for information about a new movie, you might have previously encountered articles that aggregated reviews from other sites without adding perspectives beyond what's available elsewhere on the web," the company explained in a blog post. "This isn't very helpful if you're expecting to read something new. With this update, you'll see more results with unique information, so you're more likely to read something you haven't seen before."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: It sounds like something out of an urban legend: Some Windows XP-era laptops using 5400 RPM spinning hard drives can allegedly be forced to crash when exposed to Janet Jackson's 1989 hit "Rhythm Nation." But Microsoft Software Engineer Raymond Chen stands by the story in a blog post published earlier this week, and the vulnerability has been issued an official CVE ID by The Mitre Corporation, lending it more credibility. According to Chen, CVE-2022-38392 was originally discovered by "a major computer manufacturer," and it can affect not just the laptop playing the song but adjacent laptops from other PC companies as well.

The specific hard drive model at issue -- again from an unnamed manufacturer -- would crash because "Rhythm Nation" used some of the same "natural resonant frequencies" that the drives used, interfering with their operation. Anyone trying to independently recreate this problem will face several obstacles, including the age of the laptops involved and a total lack of specificity about the hard drives or computer models. The CVE entry mentions "a certain 5400 RPM OEM hard drive, as shipped with laptop PCs in approximately 2005" and links back to Chen's post as a primary source. And while some Windows XP-era laptop hard drives may still be kicking out there somewhere, after almost two decades, it's more likely that most of them have died of natural causes. The PC manufacturer was able to partially resolve the issue "by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline that detected and removed the offending frequencies during audio playbanck," says Chen. However, these HDDs would still crash if they were exposed to another device that was playing the song.

Qualcomm is taking another run at the market for server processors, Bloomberg News reported Thursday, citing people familiar with its plans, betting it can tap a fast-growing industry and decrease its reliance on smartphones. From a report: The company is seeking customers for a product stemming from last year's purchase of chip startup Nuvia, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Amazon.com AWS business, one of the biggest server chip buyers, has agreed to take a look at Qualcomm's offerings, they said. Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon is trying to turn Qualcomm into a broader provider of semiconductors, rather than just the top maker of smartphone chips. But an earlier push into the server market was abandoned four years ago under his predecessor. At the time, the company was trying to cut costs and placate investors after fending off a hostile takeover by Broadcom.

This time around, Qualcomm has Nuvia, staffed with chip designers from companies such as Apple. Amon, who acquired the business for about $1.4 billion in 2021, has said that its work will help revitalize Qualcomm's high-end offerings for smartphones. But Nuvia was founded as a provider of technology for the server industry. The market for cloud computing infrastructure -- the kind of equipment that Amazon, Google and Microsoft use to whisk data around the world -- generated $73.9 billion last year, according to research firm IDC. That was up 8.8% from 2020. The owners of giant cloud data centers have long relied on Intel's chip technology for their servers. But they're increasingly embracing processors that use designs from Arm, a key partner in phone chips for San Diego-based Qualcomm.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It's been just over five years since Google announced at Google I/O 2017 that it would make Kotlin, the statically typed language for the Java Virtual Machine first developed by JetBrains, a first-class language for writing Android apps. Since then, Google took this a step further by making Kotlin its preferred language for writing Android apps in 2019 -- and while plenty of developers still use Java, Kotlin is quickly becoming the default way to build apps for Google's mobile operating system. Back in 2018, Google and JetBrains also teamed up to launch the Kotlin Foundation.

Earlier this week, I sat down with Google's James Ward, the company's product manager for Kotlin, to talk about the language's role in the Android ecosystem and beyond, as well as the company's future plans for it. It's no surprise that Google's hope is that over time, all Android developers will switch over to Kotlin. "There is still quite a bit of Java still happening on Android," Ward said. "We know that developers are generally more satisfied with Kotlin than with Java. We know that they're more productive, the quality of applications is higher and so getting more of those people to move more of their code over has been a focus for us. The interoperability of Kotlin ... with Java has made it that people can kind of progressively move code bases over and it would be great to get to the point down the road, where just everything is all Kotlin."

Airbnb is piloting new anti-party technology in the U.S. and Canada in its ongoing efforts to fend off users who are looking to book a house to throw large, unapproved gatherings. Fast Company reports: The vacation rental company tells Fast Company the new tech is aimed at identifying "potentially high-risk reservations." Airbnb will be looking at factors like a user's history of positive reviews and history with the service, length of the requested booking, distance from their home to the booking, and whether it's booked for a weekend or weekday. The new tech is meant to flag and prevent suspect bookings from being sent to the host for approval, so homeowners can approve bookings without fear of property damage or noise complaints. People who have been blocked from booking an entire listing because of the new system will still be able to book a single room in a whole residence, since the host is more likely to be on the premise, or a hotel room.

Airbnb has been testing the tech in Australia since October 2021 and says it's seen a 35% drop in unauthorized parties in areas where the pilot was in effect. The safety tool has rolled out nationwide in Australia and will now be tested in the U.S. and Canada. The latest update builds off the company's "under-25" system, which blocks users under the age of 25 from booking entire properties close to where they live until they have at least three positive reviews. The company said in a statement that the new system is meant to prevent more party-seeking users from booking, "while having less of a blunt impact on guests who are not trying to throw a party."

Google cannot be held liable for defamation simply for providing hyperlinks to other webpages, Australia's highest court ruled today. Ars Technica reports: By itself, providing a URL is not "participation in the communication of defamatory matter which happens to be at that address... In reality, a hyperlink is merely a tool which enables a person to navigate to another webpage," the High Court of Australia ruling said. The case relates to a Google search result that linked to a 2004 article published by The Age with the title, "Underworld loses valued friend at court." The article described Melbourne-based lawyer George Defteros, who was charged with conspiracy to murder and incitement to murder the day before it was published. The charge was withdrawn in 2005. Defteros sued Google after becoming aware that a Google search of his name produced a link to the article and a snippet. Google refused to remove the article from search results despite a request from Defteros in 2016.

A lower-court judge "found that the Underworld article conveyed a defamatory imputation, namely that the respondent had crossed the line from being a professional solicitor to being a confidant and friend of criminal elements," today's ruling noted. Lower courts decided that Google "published the defamatory matter because the provision of the Search Result was instrumental to the communication of the content of the Underworld article to the user, in that it lent assistance to its publication," according to a summary of today's ruling (PDF) provided by the High Court of Australia. Google had been ordered to pay Defteros $40,000 (about $27,710 in USD). But in reversing lower-court rulings, a 5-2 majority of the High Court found that Google did not publish the defamatory matter.

Google "did not lend assistance to The Age in communicating the defamatory matter contained in the Underworld article" because the "provision of a hyperlink in the Search Result merely facilitated access to the Underworld article and was not an act of participation in the bilateral process of communicating the contents of that article to a third party," the summary of the ruling said. "There was no other basis for finding publication because the appellant had not participated in the writing or disseminating of the defamatory matter." [...] Today's ruling could have been different if Google had been paid to promote The Age article. The appeal "does not present the occasion to consider whether the conclusion would be different in respect of those hyperlinks that, by agreement with a third party, are promoted by the appellant following a search request," the ruling said. "Nor was any issue raised on this appeal about any service provided in the aggregation of news results. It suffices to say that it is arguable that the appellant and a third party might share a common intention to publish the content of a third-party webpage that, as a consequence of an agreement between the appellant and the third party, is promoted as a search result."