Japanese Court Orders Google To Remove Negative Reviews From Google Maps 106
An anonymous reader writes: As reported by TechCrunch, the Japenese Chiba District Court issued a preliminary injunction forcing Google to delete two anonymous reviews for a medical clinic. Although negative, neither review violates Google policies. "The decision is based on a defamation suit from the clinic, a key part of which included an affidavit from the doctor who interacted with the anonymous reviewers and denied their claims." And here is the key part: "The court ruled that Google not only removes the content in Japan, but across the entire globe too." Google is currently considering it's options including an appeal.
Disturbing. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This appears to be more of a bringing "internet way" closer to how things are done in real life.
As in if someone anonymously puts up a poster on private land that defames you, you actually get to challenge it in court and if it's found to be libel it's taken down.
This is censorship in the same way as "not allowing libel" is censorship.
Re:Disturbing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, you're making an awful huge leap to libel.
Because TFS says:
It's not libel if it's true, and just because the doctor who was negatively reviewed says "nuh uh, am not" does NOT establish anything at all resembling libel.
This is the heart of the problem ... how is the subject of the bad review denying it evidence of a damned thing? You can safely assume the doctor would deny it even if it was true.
You simply have no basis to conclude libel.
Have you stopped beating your wife?
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"It's not libel if it's true, and just because the doctor who was negatively reviewed says "nuh uh, am not" does NOT establish anything at all resembling libel."
If you go to a court of law and the anonymous party doesn't defend themselves then 100% its libel. If you don't stand up for your point, it has zero credability.
On the flip side, Google should honour the japanese take-down in Japan while allowing for the clinic to follow similar law suits in other nations if they find it necessary for a similar ruli
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The original story doesn't actually indicate the comments were or were not libel. What it does say is the lawyer won his defamation case in court, based on his (sworn?) affidavit(s). Implied is that the commentors had opportunity to respond. Until we know more, we must assume that the comments are considered libelous in Japan and could be here, as well.
The real story is that Google is now expected to go scrub like comments from the rest of the web, not just their search engine. I think if I were Google's
Re:Disturbing. (Score:5, Informative)
Lawyer here.
Based on your spelling of "honour," I am assuming you are not a U.S. citizen.
Under U.S. law (with some exceptions under the libel laws of various states), a statement of opinion is per se not libel, as long as it does not express factually inaccurate information. Whether the utterance is anonymous or not, and whether the person making the statement shows up to "defend themselves" has no bearing on whether a statement is libel.
Japanese defamation law is somewhat different in that even true statements can be found civilly and criminally defamatory if it damages the victim's reputation and is not in the public interest. But even in this case, the fact that a statement is defamation (not libel - Japanese law makes no distinction between types of defamation, despite the language used in TFA) is a product of the type of statement and intent and has nothing to do with whether the person "showed up in court."
And no, Google should not take down the reviews in other countries. Japan's courts absolutely do not have jurisdiction to enforce this in any other country other than Japan, and Google would have to be a bunch of idiots to cave to this court, since it would only embolden other courts, not only in Japan, but in every other country in the world, to attempt similar shenanigans.
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Have you stopped beating your wife?
Old one.
The answer is yes.
You would say "so you used to beat her!" to which the answer is "no".
One can stop before performing the action.
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I beat her all the time.
She crap at scrabble.
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She beats me up every M-F. I work later hours, and typically stay in bed another 10-20 minutes.
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Usually people crap before sitting down to play a game... perhaps that is why you always win, she is distracted?
Re:Disturbing. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are single, the "correct" answer is mu [wikipedia.org] which means "not applicable."
As in, the question _presupposes_ conditions which are not true. If you are single, you are not married by definition.
Truth is not a mutually exclusive binary state of True / False.
> One can stop before performing the action.
No, one never started
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Truth is not a mutually exclusive binary state of True / False.
Of course not. "How many integers are there between one and five (not including one and five)" is an example of a question that has a precise answer that is true, but not binary.
I don't quite understand the difficulty with the "When did you stop beating your wife?" question. It's got a blatantly false (in most cases) statement right at its heart. All it's actually asking is a timeframe, nothing else. "You used to beat your wife. When did
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In US law, libel is a written defamatory statement (as opposed to slander, which is a verbal defamatory statement). So in the US, I believe this would be considered a libel case. Gstoddart is correct in that truth is a complete defense against a libel suit...in the US. I have no idea what the courts consider adequate defense against libel in Japan. The doctor stating "nuh uh" may be all it takes.
This is the ever-growing problem with a global system of instant communication in a civilization that has no laws
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Just FYI, in Japan, it doesn't mater if it's true. You cannot post anything that would bring financial harm to a company. True facts or not, if you post negative things just to hurt a company, you're breaking the law in Japan. I don't see how Google can win this actually. Of course, they're free to keep showing the negative reviews in other countries.
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Just FYI, in Japan, it doesn't mater if it's true. You cannot post anything that would bring financial harm to a company. True facts or not, if you post negative things just to hurt a company, you're breaking the law in Japan.
If you post negative things with the intent of hurting a company, you're a bit odd anyway. If you post negative things to help other consumers make a decision between products or services, that's absolutely fine in Japanese law. If this was not the case, all Japanese reviews would
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The law in Japan is that if the defendant doesn't show up they usually lose by default, and since they chose to remain anonymous they lost. The only really controversial thing here is that they are trying to force Google to take the material down world wide.
I'm not an expert on that part of Japanese law (or most of it to be honest, just the defamation part because of 2ch) but it's possible that it allows the court to hold the Japanese Google subsidiary responsible for a world-wide take down. If the parent f
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It's not libel if it's true
This might be the case in the US, but in other countries the law might be different. Not sure about Japan, but countries in which proving "truth" is not a valid defence against an accusation of defamation do exist.
Re:Disturbing. (Score:5, Informative)
This appears to be more of a bringing "internet way" closer to how things are done in real life.
As in if someone anonymously puts up a poster on private land that defames you, you actually get to challenge it in court and if it's found to be libel it's taken down.
This is censorship in the same way as "not allowing libel" is censorship.
No, if a poster is found to be libel in Japan, it is not taken down elsewhere.
In this case, it is protected speech in the US because it is opinions that the reviewers believe to be true. If it is still not allowed under Japanese law, that is fine; I've never heard them accused of supporting Free Speech. But the idea that it would be taken down in the US is, well, "insane."
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It's not insane at all. There is a Google subsidiary in Japan. If it doesn't comply it will be held subject to Japanese laws, say by being fined. Google could close its Japanese operation down to avoid the fine, but that would lose it billions of dollars in revenue.
That's just the way the world is. If you do business somewhere you are subject to that place's laws, or at least the subsidiary you set up is. Some places, like the EU, seem happy for you to just comply with local laws when serving content to the
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And, similarly, an Egyptian court could order Google to take down anything defamatory towards Muhammed or the Koran, no matter where. Google really does have to fight this one.
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Does Google have an Egyptian subsidiary? If so, that subsidiary is subject to Egyptian law. What did you expect?
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No, if a poster is found to be libel in Japan, it is not taken down elsewhere.
Because of a bad analogy. A poster put up in California is not visible from Japan.
I've never heard them accused of supporting Free Speech.
When you pull your head out of your ass, you can see the rest of the world more clearly. Try it.
Re:Disturbing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, no. Not even close to how it works in reality.
If I put up a poster in my front yard (in the United States) defaming a Japanese doctor, a Japanese court has zero ability to make me take it down.
Look at this from a less "I personally approve of this ruling" angle - If a Saudi court rules that the New York Times needs to recall an issue for an offensive cartoon, would you expect the NYT to actually round up every printed copy in the US, or just to stop the delivery of that day's issue to Saudi addresses?
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The question is whether a review on Google can be accessed by someone in Japan (yes, of course it can).
The court has ordered that the offending review be made unavailable to someone in Japan. Their proposed method for doing that seems to overstep the court's authority, but now Google has to decide if they want to go along or risk sanctions.
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If I put up a poster in my front yard (in the United States) defaming a Japanese doctor, a Japanese court has zero ability to make me take it down.
That's true, but the doctor could sue you in a court in your local jurisdiction, and if your poster was found to be libelous, then you could be required to take it down.
Google operates in Japan. They can decide how they want to respond to this demand, but they certainly can't ignore it. I presume that they will appeal, since that's typically what one does when one can and when one has lawyers in one's pocket.
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If I put up a poster in my front yard (in the United States) defaming a Japanese doctor, a Japanese court has zero ability to make me take it down.
Because you can't see that poster from Japan. Both the writing and the reading happens in the USA, due to physical restrictions.
The Internet is not bound by these restrictions.
Here's the realistic options that Google has:
1.) file an appeal
2.) comply with the court decision
3.) stop doing business in Japan, effective immediately
For some rea$$$on, I'm pretty sure that contrary to the usual USA-supremecists big talk here, #3 will not even be seriously considered within the Google HQ.
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Not entirely germane, but were the reviews involved not anonymous I'd be more inclined to side with them: their reputation versus the reputation that feels slandered. By hiding behind anonymity, they aren't really feeling the burden an unsubstantiated declaration should entail.
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Depends.
Are you advocating the use of adult diapers?
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This is true under US law, but not necessarily under the laws of any particular other country.
Note that a quick google-fu indicates that bad-mouthing someone in Japan is defamation, EVEN IF TRUE!
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Note: 230-1 is defamation
Article 230-2(1)When an act prescribed under paragraph (1) of the preceding Article is found to relate to matters of public interest and to have been conducted solely for the benefit of the public, the truth or falsity of the alleged facts shall be examined, and punishment shall not be imposed if they are proven to be true.
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Yeah, they should just say "no," and make it clear to Japan, if they think the ruling applies outside of Japan, it doesn't. If they want it to apply in the US, they need to come here and get a court here to say that Japanese legal rulings apply here.
It is actually hilarious that they would think that, given the history of the past 70 years.
Actually, I think the US State Department should be getting involved at an early stage here. They shouldn't even be putting out preliminary rulings of this nature. Surely
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Yes. You'd think that editors would follow a standard routine. The first pass would be cleaning up grammar and spelling, followed then by checking the sources. Are either of those steps built into the routine? Do they have a standard practice?
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100% agree!
Sometimes information is incorrect, or out-of-date.
Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away.
use the response "Fuck, No, Idiots" (Score:2)
why does some nation's law propogate across the entire Internet? it's time to stop this crap. if they block Google, then Google can block all service from .jp domains. let's see who the loser is.
Name of clinic plastered all over the internet (Score:2)
In 3, 2, 1...
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UK (Score:2)
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In the UK, truth is essentially always a valid defense.
The big difference between UK law and US law, as I can see it, is that in the UK the person who made the defamatory statement has to prove it. The defamed is under no obligation under law to say anything at all, they can just bring it to court, as long as they say it's false. The onus is on the defamer rather than the defamed, they have to show why they said it.
Also, this doesn't stop most of our newspapers reporting absolute bollocks half the time, b
A possible solution... (Score:3)
Upon receiving such a request, Google should no longer index any site or web page that links to or mentions those who demanded censorship in the first place.
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Or just block all of google with the screen "your country is screwed up, kthkbai".
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Google should no longer index any site or web page that links to or mentions those who demanded censorship
I sincerely hope you misspoke here, since based on what you've said, you're suggesting we block every news site that reports on censorship. We'd be left without a single good source for news within a month if we did that. Slashdot would be delisted within 24 hours. All we'd have left are news sites in bed with the governments or "news" sites dedicated to utterly banal topics.
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I meant the specific page, not the site, so I misspoke there. But who's blocking anything? If Google doesn't index it, does it somehow magically disappear from the web? Did you find this story via a web link? In this case, the business name wasn't even mentioned or linked to.
But no, honestly, I'm not *really* serious about that - more of a wish that these businesses or individuals demanding things of Google would catch a bit of what they're trying to force on others. These businesses gain a lot of valu
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Upon receiving such a request, Google should no longer index any site or web page that links to or mentions those who demanded censorship in the first place.
People who claim this as a reasonable response seem to forget why Google became popular in the first place; accurate and complete results with useful information on all topics.
If Google starts making people or companies disappear online for whatever reason, be it money, or a censorship battle they will cease being useful.
The clinic is not mentioned (Score:2)
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Well, I think I should google for a clinic with anonymous bad reviews in google maps.
Use Bing :-).
considering its options (Score:2)
considering its options
Remove all comments for clinic (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yep and then why would we go to Google to get reviews?
People seem to forget the reason Google is actually popular. If they start screwing up the results then they stop becoming useful.
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Yeah, this is actually a great idea. Make it all or nothing. You don't get to block NEGATIVE reviews, you either take them all, or take none.
Let the public decide of they want to do business when they see a message like "All reviews of this establishment have been removed due to a court order demanding removal of one or more specific reviews. Per Google's all-or-nothing policy, all reviews are suspended."
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Thankfully, Google is not a 3 year old throwing a temper tantrum, like you'd like them to be.
Jurisdiction? (Score:3)
Others seem intent on commenting on the questions of slander/libel/censorship... but I think a far more important question to pose is that of jurisdiction. I think that Google should simply permit Japan to have their way -- within Japan's sovereign territory -- but Google should not allow this ruling to have any impact whatsoever on what they display to users outside of that jurisdiction.
This reminds me of when the US was attempting to obtain e-mails from Microsoft, when those e-mails were hosted on a Dublin server; I didn't agree with the United States' argument for jurisdiction then, and I don't agree with Japan's argument for jurisdiction now.
Sure (Score:1)
Why not ask the review site to remove it instead? (Score:2)
I find it interesting that the court insists that Google no longer returns the page with the negative review. Rather the court should force the review site to remove the review then the links should disappear from Google (and I assume the Google cached copy too after a while.) It seems an unfair burden to me to force Google to take ownership for any of the content on site that it indexes using purely algorithmic processes.
Not far enough! (Score:2)
If only the courts would take that final logical step to ban people having bad opinions.
Think how much nicer the world would be?
I would love to get bad reviews about my business (Score:2)
so I can quickly fix the issues for the customer and future customers while showing people that I care enough about my customer base and business to accept and fix my flaws.
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That's ok as long as I can reply to them after I fix the problem. It can work both ways as long as the business owner wants to fix the issue.
Delist the bitches (Score:1)
The only real response to something like this is a complete delisting. No more google for you!
considering it's options including an appeal (Score:1)
I think they're wrong here, it's not options at all.
options (Score:2)
The decision is based on a defamation suit [...] Google is currently considering it's options including an appeal.
including? What are the other options? Simply ignoring a court decision? Of course, they're a big american company with a big american attitude including the "our laws are the laws of the world" approach (we can sue everyone everywhere for everything that's illegal in the USA, but we don't accept other countries laws as valid to us, even when we're doing our business there).
I'm split on the court decision, adding more information to something is generally the better approach over removing information, but
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I read Anonymous Coward's post and began bleeding profusely from the eyes. Anonymous Coward suggested that "knowledge" is needed to form an opinion before rendering judgment. 1/5 stars. Would not read again.
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Japan can go fuck itself.