A Paris court has fined Google to pay damages to a convicted sex offender as Google suggested ‘rapist’ when the plaintiff’s name was searched. The case against the plaintiff had not been decided when “Google Suggest” started suggesting the word ‘rapist’ alongside his name.

This is a crucial moment in a criminal case as the court needs to be impartial in how they go about conducting a case and this can be termed to media coverage and result in the conviction being quashed if the court decides that this has resulted in court members being influenced.

However, this could be even bigger when it comes to a company or a celebrity going through a criminal case. It could be huge for Public Relations and Reputation Management even if it is, for now, a ruling confined to France alone where anti-Google judgement are par for the course.

This is Google’s second conviction in France over suggested queries and the company continues to claim that -

“Google Suggest is an aggregate of the most popular searches based on past requests from users. Google does not suggest these terms.”

This is disingenuous to say the least, especially since they actually call it Google Suggest – suggest itself being a verb and not a noun. The French are clearly not buying Google’s defence and the court has ordered Google to pay 5,000 euros (6,700 dollars) towards the plaintiff’s costs. Being the second conviction in France this year for Google suggest, the company will have to consider how they are going to frame the fucntion within the law in France.

For Google watchers, these cases provide a brief and limited insight into how Google operates its search algorithm. A trade secret about which Google quite naturally likes to say very little if possible. It also shows how challenging it is going to be for Google as they balance being both a machine determined search engine and also being viewed as a media publisher. In effect, the court is saying that Google decides what they show and that the Suggest feature may be an aggregate but it is also a published piece of media.

If you’re professional a doctor or a lawyer you’re probably wary of sites like RateMDs.com or LawyerRatingz.com, a bad review or comment there could make all the difference in your professional life. Reputation is all that matters to a doctor or lawyer their whole life, education and training all ride on this one factor through out their active years.

Good feedback from clients/patients on rating sites can double your value as a professional, you could be thinking of new offices and clinics with referrals from such sites. Much like hotel reviews on TripAdvisor can make or break your hotel’s reputation.  So what can you do if you have been maliciously slandered by someone out for a personal vendetta? Is there a way out?

When we read reviews online we tend to believe the person with a label similar to our own. For example: a review poster’s bio may be simply read – “50 year old man with arthritis” or “a mother of two toddlers” and the reader immediately connects with them. What follows in the review can make or break the reputation of the doctor being rated.

If all reputation management tricks fail to remove negative comments and reviews – law is the only way ahead. We could soon be having Reputation Management Law, wherein you could get the real identity of the poster revealed. You could actually find out if the malicious poster was actually your client or patient!!!

If you’re thinking ..”no way is this happening”, let me tell you that this has happened already – Lawiscool.com has reported exactly this …

The case of  Dr. Mohamed Foda of Leduc, Alberta, who forced RateMDs to provide information about a negative poster through the California Northern District Court in Foda et al v. RateMDs, Inc.  

Administrator of RateMDs, John Swapceinski, says that the site gets letters from lawyers once a month.  Not surprisingly, they do not comply with the requests.  The site does serve an important public function for consumers of healthcare.  But Swapceinski also said that Dr. Foda’s suit is the first time a lawyer has actually followed through and sued the site, and he indicated he would cooperate with a subpoena to release the information if one was provided.”

Here at Reputation Management For.com we welcome any such legislation and this could very well lead to a whole new branch in corporate reputation management. We are all for justice and this is reputation management at its most effective.

A grey area here could be the right to privacy and the big news today is that France is pondering on a Right To Forget Law to protect people from their own Tweets and Facebook posts!

These are very interesting times indeed for reputation management. Watch this space for updates on any legislation coming the reputation management way!