SA Supreme Court rules Dr Janice Duffy was defamed by Google through its hyperlinks, auto-complete and search engine results

A FORMER SA Health researcher has secured a victory in her six-year battle with Google, with a court ruling she was defamed by the internet giant — in part due to the way it auto-completed search terms.

A FORMER SA Health researcher has won a six-year legal battle against Google, proving she was defamed by the internet giant due to the way it auto-completed search terms.

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday found Google published defamatory imputations about Dr Janice Duffy “to a substantial number of people”.

Justice Malcolm Blue said the search company’s auto-complete results either published, republished or directed users toward comments harmful to her reputation.

“Your Honour, was I defamed?” an emotional Dr Duffy, who is representing herself, asked after Justice Blue delivered his written judgment.

When Justice Blue confirmed his finding, Dr Duffy replied “then it’s OK” and wept at the bar table.

However, the case is not over – the court will reconvene next week to set a timetable for further argument on damages and Google’s assertion that the matter is trivial.

Dr Duffy, 59, filed her lawsuit in response to claims made about her on websites including ripoffreport.com.

That site, known as a “shaming platform”, allows anyone to post reports about people whom they suspect are behaving in a criminal or dishonest manner, regardless of its factual accuracy.

Dr Duffy asserted she had sued Google in an effort to have links to the material removed, having first written to the company asking it take action on her behalf.

Google denied any wrongdoing, claiming it had disseminated the material “innocently”, was not its publisher, was justified, protected by qualified privilege and contextual truth.

In his judgment, Justice Blue rejected all of Google’s asserted defences in regard to some of the hyperlinks complained about by Dr Duffy.

He said Dr Duffy had asked Google, in September 2009, to remove the links but it refused, doing so only after she filed her lawsuit in February 2011.

Justice Blue said that removal took until November 2011, but defamatory material continued to appear as an auto-complete result when users typed Dr Duffy’s name into Google.

He said it was a “well-established” legal principle that search engine operators and website hosts were “secondary publishers” of data.

Justice Blue said that, at law, secondary publishers were liable unless they could prove they had no knowledge of the defamatory matter — and Google had known about it.

He said a “reasonable time” for Google to have removed the material by was October 2009.

“The defendant was a publisher of the allegedly defamatory paragraphs on its websites and a republisher via hyperlinks,” he said.

“The plaintiff gave notification, the defendant failed to remove (them) within a reasonable time.

“The defences ... are not established.”

The case returns to court next week.