Google has won a landmark battle in the High Court after it found that Google could not be considered a publisher, and therefore cannot be held legally responsible for defamatory news stories linked to on its non-sponsored search results.
The search engine giant has been locked in a legal battle with Melbourne lawyer George Defteros since 2016, when he sued Google for linking to a 2004 article in The Age that claimed Defteros was charged with conspiracy and incitement to murder underworld figures – charged that were dropped the following year.
In 2020, the Victorian Supreme Court ordered Google to pay $40,000 in damages, finding Google was a publisher.
Today, the High Court overturned this ruling and sided with Google’s claim of being a mere navigator and not the publisher of The Age’s content, despite providing a link to the story.
“A hyperlink only communicates that something exists or where it exists,” Google argued. “It is the operator of the webpage who communicates the content to the user.”
Lawyers for Defteros (pictured above) argued that Google’s search engine was not a passive tool, “such as the facility provided by a telephone company”.
The High Court disagreed.
“A majority of the court held that the appellant did not lend assistance in communicating the defamatory matter contained in the article to the third party users,” the ruling stated.
“The provision of a hyperlink in the Search Result merely facilitated access to the article and was not an act of participation in the bilateral process of communicating the contents of that article to a third party.
“There being no publication, the majority found it unnecessary to consider the defences raised by the appellant.”
Chief Justice Susan Kiefel and Justice Jacqueline Gleeson added: “the provision of the Search Result, including the hyperlink, has no connection to the creation of the article; its creation was in no way approved or encouraged by the appellant [Google]; and the appellant did not participate in it being placed on The Age’s website.
“Whilst it may be said that the use of a hyperlink may mean The Age gains a reader, that does not make the appellant something other than a reference provider.”
