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Rana claimed damages from Google Australia and Google Inc. in defamation for publishing links to defamatory websites in its search results. The Federal Court granted summary judgment to Google Australia, holding that it had no control over the search results. Leave was granted to serve Google Inc. extraterritorially, although the court expressed doubt as to whether Google could be described as a “publisher” of the defamatory imputations.

Plaintiff’s personal information and photos in Google’s search engine were displayed together with pictures of major known criminals in Melburne, Australia. Plaintiff sued Google for defamation and required the content to be taken down. Plaintiff claimed that the search results were defamatory because created the false innuendo that he was involved with crime in Melburne. The jury in this case was asked to answer the question whether search engines are liable for publishing defamatory materials that are assembled for the first time in an automated manner by their software. Jury found that search engines, such as Google, are publisher of the defamatory material when their software produce and put together search results in accordance with its intended operation. The judge in this case instructed the jury that it was...

The Wall Street Journal / Barron’s online published allegations of criminal activity by Gutnick, and Australian citizen and resident. The article was accessible to paying online subscribers, some of whom (.3%) paid with credit cards linked to Australian addresses. Defendant publisher’s editors and their web servers were all in the United States. Gutnick sued for defamation. Defendant argued that Australian courts lacked jurisdiction. It said that jurisdiction should be determined by the location of servers, unless that location was “adventitious or opportunistic,” that is, intended to avoid legitimate assertions of jurisdiction. Plaintiff countered that jurisdiction existed in any place where content could be downloaded by authorized subscribers. The court considered at length defamation-specific doctrines such as the...

In this case, the Austrian Supreme Court was faced with the issue to what extent is Facebook obligated to remove defamatory content posted by its users. It raises questions both about global removal and about proactive monitoring of user content. The plaintiff, Ms Glawischnig - former leader of the Green Party in Austria, requested that Facebook removes a post with her photo and a comment calling her among others a “lousy traitor”, a “corrupt boor” and her party a “fascist party”. The plaintiff also requested that Facebook removes comments with not exactly verbatim, but similar content. Facebook refused to comply with the request, claiming that as a host provider it is not obligated to remove the content, unless it has been informed of the infringing content and it's unlawfulness is apparent to a legal layman...

(1) An Austrian politician sued the publisher of an online newspaper for disclosure of the names and email addresses of users who posted allegedly infringing comments in the discussion forum under a certain article about the politician. (2) The Court confirmed that the defendant was obliged to disclose the information about the users according to Section 18 (4) ECG. The plaintiff did not have to prove that the comments were infringing. He only had to show probable cause why the comments were infringing. Further the Court ruled that the protection of sources due to journalist confidentiality in Section 31 Mediengesetz (Media act) was not applicable.

(1) An Austrian Bishop claimed that an online newspaper article infringed his personality rights. He sued the newspaper publisher for injunctive relief. The defendant claimed that he is not a hosting provider and therefore cannot be sued for injunctive relief. (2) Due to the defendant's misconception about the interpretation of Section 16 ECG, the Court had to point out that Section 16 ECG does not establish the liability of hosting providers, but rather determines the conditions under which they are not liable for the actions of third parties. The Court also pointed out that hosting providers can be sued for injunctive relief (Section 19 ECG) regardless of Sections 13-17 ECG.