Tokyo District Court issued a decision of provisional disposition on March 19 for Google to remove specific search results on its suggested keywords feature around a name of a male who sued Google that the search results infringed his privacy, according to the layer of him, Mainichi reported [J] ([update 2012-03-27] Mainichi English posted the English version now).
According to the plaintiff, when you type of some first letters of the male’s full name, Google Search suggests his full name with additional keywords which are reminiscent of criminal acts, none of which, as he claimed, he did commit. Because of this, he was fired, and new job offers were taken down.
He consulted a research company and they found that there are over 10,000 web pages, alluding that the person committed crimes, exist and are displayed on Google Search, given on the suggest feature. The man requested Google to remove those results, which was not accepted. He filed a lawsuit seeking a provisional injunction in October, 2011.
On the trial, Google Japan claimed that they had no authority to remove them. U.S. Google answered “The keywords are only programmatically listed so can not be privacy infringement.”, “It does not violate the Communications Decency Act of the U.S. It can not be regulated by Japanese law.”, Mainichi reported [J].
The order set the limit as March 25, however, U.S. Google has not taken any action on the court order until now. If this continues, the layers are reportedly to petition indirect enforcement, such like payment of fines.
Google Japan PR commented to Mainich that they are considering a response.
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NHK news [J]
