Google To Pay AU$ 200,000 For Defaming Melbourne Man

 

• Milorad Trkulja
• Awarded $200,000
• Also, awarded AU$225,000 from Yahoo!

Google is in for a lot of trouble after a six-person Supreme Court jury found in favour of a Melbourne man after his photo was shown in Google image results when searching for Australian gangland figure Tony Mokbel.

 

• Milorad Trkulja
• Awarded $200,000
• Also, awarded AU$225,000 from Yahoo!

Google is in for a lot of trouble after a six-person Supreme Court jury found in favour of a Melbourne man after his photo was shown in Google image results when searching for Australian gangland figure Tony Mokbel.

Milorad Trkulja has been awarded AU$200,000 in when the court found that he had been defamed against by the search giant after he contacted them in 2009 asking for the images to be removed.

Google’s defence nestled on the fact that it didn't publish the images itself, merely indexing links to a website that had made the connection to Mokbel and Trkulja. However, since Google was contacted before for the removal of the photo, the jury found the company's lack of effort to remove the images once contacted constituted defamation.

The ruling followed a similar result earlier this year, when Trkulja was awarded AU$225,000 from Yahoo! for the same issue.

While $200,000 may just be chink change for Google, the verdict will set an interesting precedent, and could potentially alter the way Google handles complaints about search results in the future.