A wealthy Hong Kong man, rich enough to be described as a tycoon, is suing Google because he believes the autocomplete function built into Google search provides words inferring he has links to organized crime.
That's right, he's suing an algorithm for libel. And so far, he's winning.
A Hong Kong court dismissed Google's arguments in the matter, and told the plaintiff, Dr. Albert Yeung Sau Shing, he could proceed with the legal action.
Google's belief is that Yeung would have better luck if he went directly to websites that published the defamatory information and asked them to remove it. This did not resonate well with Judge Marlene Ng, who countered Google could censor the material on its own.
Yeung claims Google autocomplete associates the word "triad" with his name. In China, triad is a term that denotes organized crime gangs.
Yeung, a billionaire, owns a company that produces films and also manages many celebrities. He has his fingers in a lot of pies, including real estate, jewelry, food and beverage, publishing, hospitality and furniture, none of which can be described as criminal enterprises. He is basing his defamation lawsuit on what he claims is a gravely injured reputation and is seeking monetary succor in return.
Judge Ng's decision leaves Google searching for some relief as the past few months have seen controversy envelope its search engine. Earlier in the year, they ran afoul of the European Union over a ruling by the European Commission that a netizen living in any member nation had the "right to be forgotten" by search engines. The ruling requires search engines to remove what the user believes are defamatory links. The user must request the removal in a formal process. Google, despite not being the only search engine on the block, was singled out as the EU's first target.
Last year, a German court ruled in favor of a nutritional supplements company that sued Google in order to force removal of autocomplete results implying that the company had ties to Scientology and fraud.
There is a common thread to all three of these examples of Google's ongoing search engine troubles - that privacy and libel laws are not one-size-fits-all, and any Internet search engine will discover that trying to find the right mix of policies on a worldwide scale is like playing hopscotch in a mine field.
On the positive side, Google's ability to scan Gmail messages for content of interest to advertisers revealed a photo that was clearly an example of child pornography; this information was turned over to the Houston police department, which then arrested a registered sex offender and charged him with new crimes. However, the incident then raised concerns about Google's respect for individual privacy rights in general.
