Good Try, No Banana

PUBLISHED: 15:25, 14 February 2013 | UPDATED: 15:26, 14 February 2013

Will Google be forced to police online comments? Judge in Blogger.com libel case 'opens door' for internet giant being required to monitor users' posts

"Google says Blogger is blank wall and it isn't responsible for writings online,

But appeal court hears it's arguable Google is 'publisher' in defamation law,

Legal expert: 'Another court could run with these comments in the future',

Long-running case involves student Payam Tamiz who was vilified online."

"‘The court did rule that it was arguable that Google was a "publisher" in defamation law, and therefore responsible for defamatory comments once notified of them.

‘Google in fact won this case, because even if it had been potentially liable under defamation law, the offending comment only had a "trivial" effect.

‘The ruling does, however, open the door for a future case where a court might take up the comments of the Court of Appeal in this case and run with them.

‘But we are not there yet. In the meantime, Google and other similar companies will rightly be worried that they may be liable in similar future cases.’

A Google spokesman told MailOnline: 'Google helps spread knowledge, enabling people to find out about almost anything by typing a few words into a computer.

'And services like Blogger, YouTube and Google+ help users to express themselves and share different points of view. Where content is illegal or violates our terms of service we will continue to remove it.'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278657/Blogger-com-libel-case-opens-door-Google-required-monitor-users-posts.html