Thursday, March 22, 2007

G*ogle has a BIG win

Good to see that you cannot be legally compelled to say some particular thing on a private website:

"A US judge has thrown out a lawsuit challenging the fairness of how web search leader G*ogle calculates the popularity of websites in determining search results, court papers show.

In a ruling issued on Friday that came to light on Tuesday, Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against G*ogle by parenting information site KinderStart.

The judge also imposed yet-to-be-determined sanctions on KinderStart legal counsel Gregory Yu for making unsupported allegations against G*ogle.

KinderStart sued G*ogle in March 2006 alleging the internet company had defamed the site by cutting it from its web search ranking system.... KinderStart, which features links to information about raising children, accused G*ogle of violations of antitrust, free speech, unfair competition and defamation and libel laws....

"KinderStart had failed to explain how G*ogle caused injury to it by a provably false statement ... as distinguished from an unfavorable opinion about KinderStart.com's importance," the judge's ruling states.

Source