Google on contempt charge over reviews

NSW Supreme Court flags major legal showdown with US tech giant Google, ordering contempt charge against it.

One of the biggest challenges for clients is the glacial pace of the media behemoths in responding to requests to take down defamatory and offensive online posts.

The NSW Supreme Court has flagged a major legal showdown with US tech giant Google, directing that a contempt charge be issue­d against the media ­behemoth after it ignored a court order on Friday to take down a series­ of damning Google reviews against a Sydney businessman.

The high-profile businessman, whose name has been suppressed, launched legal proceedings on Thursday against the California-based company after it failed to respond to his repeated requests to take down a series of “seriously defamatory” attacks against him on Google reviews.

“The comments were abso­lutely hideous, truly beyond the pale, it doesn’t get more serious, especially for a professional,” said Rebekah Giles, a partner with global litigation firm Kennedys, who is acting for the businessman. “He had a Google rating of 4.8 (out of five stars) and that has slipped dramatically as a result of the reviews, which directly affects his livelihood.”

Ms Giles said the businessman was one of a growing number of clients who have had their reput­ations “trashed” and businesses destroyed by online trolls, often industry rivals, on digital platforms such as Google, Facebook and YouTube.

One of the biggest challenges for clients, she said, was the glacial pace of the media behemoths in responding to requests to take down defamatory and offensive online posts. Google was ordered to take down the defamatory reviews on Thursday, after an urgent injunction hearing in the NSW Supreme­ Court. But instead of taking the posts down, yet more damaging reviews­ of the businessman were posted on Google Reviews that night.

Ms Giles said despite having an “army of lawyers” at its Google Australia headquarters in Sydney, Google made no attempt to contact the court.

“It was unbelievable” Ms Giles said. “It was just a wall of silence from Google and more and more horrible posts went online.

“My client has been through hell; he has a wife who sits there every day crying. Everybody is vulnerable to Google reviews but very few people­ can afford to take them on.”

By Friday afternoon, when Google’s lawyers still hadn’t responde­d to the orders, judge David Davies issued a direction that Google be charged with contempt­ — finally prompting it to take down the posts.

In a statement from Google yesterday, a spokesperson insisted that the company had taken the court orders “seriously” and had responded “in a timely manner­”. Defamation and media law expert­ Michael Douglas said that charging Google with contempt signalled the growing frustration of Australian courts with global media companies such as Google, Facebook and YouTube which continued­ to argue that they were not bound by Australia’s defam­ation laws.

He said it was a “significant decisio­n” by a Supreme Court judge, which also flagged a willingness by Australian courts to try to “pierce the corporate veil” in which global companies claimed they were beyond the reach of Australia’s jurisdiction.

“Google likes to comply with American law and it’s constantly resisting attempts to make it comply­ with laws in the rest of the world,” said Mr Douglas, a consultan­t for West Australian law firm Bennett & Co.

“Not showing up in court may have been a deliberate strategic decision, but this case shows even a global giant can’t afford to treat Australian courts with contempt if it wants to do business here.”

Google has been summonsed to appear before the NSW Sup­reme Court on Friday.