Another Australian sues Google over nasty comments posted online

An Australian woman is suing Google for defamation, saying she had no choice but to litigate after spending months trying to persuade the search engine giant to remove links to a site hosting inflammatory comments about her.

Dr Janice Duffy says comments about her on www.ripoffreport.com – which allows people to document complaints about companies and individuals – have wrecked her career.

She says she filed defamation proceedings against Google Australia and Google Inc in February 2011 and the case is currently going through pre-trial interlocutory proceedings.

“My former employer found the defamatory material and it was made clear to me that continued employment was untenable,” Duffy writes on her blog. According to The Australian, Duffy is a former senior state Health Department researcher and has been unable to work since August last year.

“There is absolutely no chance of gaining any employment while my name is indexed in terms such as ‘rip off’, ‘fraud’, ‘scam’ and ‘complaints’.” Other allegations listed on the site are that Duffy stalks psychics.

Duffy says issuing defamation proceedings was “absolutely the last resort because I did not want to endure what will become a very public court battle”.

“I just wanted to be able to work. However, after repeated attempts to facilitate the removal of what amounts to serious defamatory material the continuation of my life was not possible while the defamation remained online.”

Duffy says she posted her name and details on www.ripoffreport.com, thinking it was a “legitimate advocacy website” and this information, along with other personal information, was then gained by people who posted defamatory information about her.

She says although the links to ripoffreport.com were removed on instruction from Google Australia, Google Inc has since refused to remove links to the defamatory material and the material is still visible and accessible in Australia.

Google Australia was contacted for comment this morning, and declined to do so.

Duffy was also contacted but did not respond before publication.

The case follows the success of a Gold Coast entrepreneur Jamie McIntyre over Google Australia, with the chief executive of 21st Century Education winning his battle in the Brisbane Supreme Court last month.

Google was ordered to release details of the author behind an allegedly defamatory website within 27 days – information gathered through its advertising relationship with the site under discussion.

That information is then expected to be used by McIntyre for a separate legal action against the author.

McIntyre has said that he initiated the case when “exhaustive efforts to find the creators of a blatantly defamatory site were unsuccessful” and added that “for too long now, people have been able to slander people on the internet”.

But search engine optimisation expert Jim Stewart, of Stewart Media, said at the time that the case would not have wide-ranging implications, because it was limited to parties with Google Ads on it.

“If it doesn’t and the site is registered anonymously and the site is hosted overseas, there’s limited flow-on,” Stewart said, adding: “In theory there can be infinite addresses so the content can stay out there. And what can happen with something like this is it will get other people talking about it.”