On March 25, 2003, Mark Maughan,
a certified public accountant with the Brown & Maughan firm, googled his
name and found some "alarming, false, misleading and injurious
results" about himself and his firm. Specifically, he alleges that the
search results falsely represent that plaintiffs Maughan and/or Brown &
Maughan have e.g. been disciplined for gross negligence. The plaintiff's
attorney, John A. Girardi, claims that the error was created because of Google's
PageRank algorithm. His argument seems to be based around the idea that Google
provides "snippets" of text from a website when it creates its search
engine results listings. In his view PageRank "reformats information
obtained from accurate sources, resulting in changing of the context in which
information is presented."
To better illustrate this case, consider another
example. My website features articles about several lawsuits. In some of them
Playboy was the plaintiff. If someone searches for my name "Stephan
Ott", it is possible that Google would list my website with the text
snippets: "Stephan Ott ... Playboy .... illegally published copyrighted
materials". Would any search engine user believe I'm a playboy that offers
illegal material? Without clicking on the link to my website, I doubt it, but
Mark Maughan doesn't. His lawsuit seeks an injunction to force Google to
discontinue use of the PageRank system as well as requesting unspecified
monetary damages. Yahoo! and AOL-Time Warner were also listed as co-defendants.
Well, someone better tell the plaintiff that the PageRank algorithm only is one
factor that determines on which position a website is listed within the search
results (see Technical
Background: Search Engines).
March 22: Google
Sued Over PageRank, webpronews:
"A man in Southern California is irate over the results of
“Googling” his name. Mark Maughan, certified public accountant of the
Brown & Maughan firm, believes the search results for “Mark Maughan”
contained “alarming, false, misleading and injurious results.”
March 19, 2004: Accountant
"Googles" Himself, Sues for Libel, NBC 4:
"A South Bay accountant who said an Internet search engine returned
"alarming" information about him and his firm sued Google, AOL,
Time Warner and Yahoo! Friday for libel."
Newsarchive
The Links & Law
website is updated regularily,
so check back for updated
information and resources about
search engine and linking issues.