Court Rules Against Woman Who Didn't Like Search Results 173
The Seventh Circuit Court has ruled that Beverly Stayart can't sue Yahoo! because she did not like what she saw on the results page after searching for her name. Stayart claimed that her "internet presence" was damaged by Yahoo! because results for a search of her name showed listings which included pharmaceuticals and adult oriented websites. The court disagreed. From the article: "Stayart had sued under Section 43(a) of the federal Lanham Act, which prohibits false advertising, false implications of endorsement, and so on. Her problem was that a Lanham Act claim requires a showing that the plaintiff has a 'commercial interest' to protect, and Stayart did not have a commercial interest in her own name."
But.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone like Tiger Woods or Steve Jobbs could sue Yahoo!?
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I sympathize with this woman (Score:5, Funny)
There are others with your plight
Sincerely,
John Q. Viagra
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It's always nice having an unpopular name that will not be adopted by porn stars.
Lempdeck Von Scrotomeuncher
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Let the Streisand Effect begin. :S
Anti-Streisend effect....? (Score:5, Interesting)
The hundreds of news stories about this trial seem to have swamped the juicy links and made them vanish.
Is this an 'anti-Streisand' effect?
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Yes, I've noticed the same. overall, she won. Yahoo'ing for her (weird word) doesn't turn up anything juicy, just this lawsuit. Damn, the Seventh Circuit Court just got USED!
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So maybe I should sue Yahoo too, to clean up my search results. Of course this is only a temporary effect. Fast-forward a year and Beverly Stayart's search will turn-up porn again.
The irony is that Alyssa Milano did the same thing, to have her nude images removed from the web, and she won despite all common sense (if you pose nude - then it becomes part of the public searches). Why is Miss Milano allowed to clean-up her yahoo/google results but not Miss Stayart?
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There really is no comparison. The images of Milano were copyrighted and being distributed without permission. There were no images of Stayart herself, copyrighted or otherwise; just that a search for her name returned unrelated links to porn.
There is no irony, or even contradiction. Two completely different issues.
--Jeremy
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No one saw the viagra humor in it, I guess.
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she should consider suing herself.
Re:Anti-Streisend effect....? (Score:5, Funny)
The hundreds of news stories about this trial seem to have swamped the juicy links and made them vanish.
Is this an 'anti-Streisand' effect?
No, this is the "Stayart Effect" ®
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Mistress Beverly "whiplash" Stayart should sue Google/Yahoo because first SERP is a bunch of Lawyers diminishing her reputation and frightening away clients
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Also a "person" like BP, Exxon, Halliburton, IBM, Nike, etc.
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Perhaps they could, but hopefully it would depend on whether Yahoo itself was engaging in such practices, for otherwise it should be granted immunity (that is, it shouldn't be held responsible for what third-party websites do simply because they appear in Yahoo's search results). In any case, I don't think the court was implying the woman would have a valid case if not for her lack of commercial interest. Why bother exploring other issues when you've
Re:But.... (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely the judge is just using the most open-and-shut logic applicable in order to put this to bed at minimal cost to all involved. My gut reaction was that this was a Bad Thing, as it left the door open for other litigious behaviors; but when I thought about it, that's the right thing for the court to do: address the case at hand, narrowly.
Probably we could have a grand old time arguing about who's responsible for keyword associations, and who owns what, and on and on... but when the law in question can be quickly shown as inapplicable by examining a single fact, what's the point letting her dump money into an effort that forces Yahoo and the taxpayers to spend additional money as well?
If she's really committed to wasting resources, perhaps she'll have her lawyer come up with another theory with which to bring a suit that cannot be so quickly set aside; if so, I guess the fun will start anew.
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Re:But.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just curious, but isn't it a commercial interest in the modern world when search results are used as part of employee screening? If my name brought up a bunch of scams and raunchy porn in a web search, it is quite possible that a prospective employer would decide not to hire me because of it (in whole or in part). This could be an impact in decisions that directly affect my income.
My guess is that the legal meaning of 'commercial' has little to do with the common meaning, thus leading to my irrelevant conjecture above.
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Actually, that may be a good question (but IANAL). The judge apparently didn't see it that way, but we don't know how the matter was presented by the lawyers; maybe a case could be made. Ultimately the judge is saying she didn't show that she had a commercial interest in her name; maybe she didn't assert an interest in her name as it appears to a job interviewer, or maybe her circumstances don't lead the judge to believe that will be a problem for her (e.g. if she's disabled, or a stay-at-home mom, or ret
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Well, anybody can sue. She did herself.
The important part is winning. She didn't. Now, the part of the law that got her suit thrown out wouldn't necessarily be the same part that would get the same suit by a publicly recognizable figure, but that doesn't mean that their own suits wouldn't also be thrown out - just because of a different part of the law.
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Potentially, but I think the wording in the law is there for things like protecting business trademarks and fighting scammers. Names just don't fall into the same category.
I would think Tiger Woods, LLC would have a better chance at removing fake reviews of his products than just Tiger Woods, the man trying to get all those stories about him cheating on his wife off the internet.
Be Honest (Score:5, Funny)
How many of you just went to google images and turned safe search off and searched for this womans name?
I think the answer will illustrate just how bad an idea this was for her.
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Though apparently the search will not. Having posted that I actually went and did that myself and came up empty. Given what I did see there I'm wondering what she's complaining about...
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I think her complaint is with Yahoo.
Re:Be Honest (Score:5, Informative)
If you RTFA(I know, I know) she sued both Yahoo and Google, but they haven't tossed the google case out of court yet.
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I did it and came up with what looked like avatar photos on a bunch of forums.
It's pretty easy for any of us to figure out the rest. If her name and her picture are on a bunch of forums that are not well maintained (i.e., spammed heavily) then they have both been related to each other pretty well. That would make the search engines accurate to associate the two. Well, as accurate as those get. If you do the same search for me, you'll see on page 3, I died on August 21, 1939.
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True, but all I saw were some avatar photos on sites that didn't look that bad.
Also, I share your pain. I died on March 9th, 1962.
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True, but all I saw were some avatar photos on sites that didn't look that bad.
Also, I share your pain. I died on March 9th, 1962.
Not only did I die in the 1800s but I was born in 2005 and someone claiming to be my daddy put up a webpage about it. Might've put up a webpage but I have to work for a living! I should sue the bastard for child support.
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Look harder. Try page 35 and page 36.
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no, seriously, whatever she saw is now ruined by the Steisand effect.
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How would it be the Streisand Effect? She isn't trying to bury something that is spreading across the net against her wishes.
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She will forever be that 'chick whose name search produced ciallis ads' to me and many others now.
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Look at it from her perspective...
If a prospective employer googled her name and found a bunch of porn and spam, it would be entirely possible that they’d conclude either (a) she’s personally involved in porn or spam or more likely (b) she gave them a fake name.
At least now they’ll see that she’s a real person, that’s her real name, and although googling it might have gave porn and spam (at one point) it at least didn’t have anything to do with her.
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Thought EVERY search came up with pharm/adult site (Score:3, Funny)
Turns out it was just me. How did they know I like drugs and sex?
Sudden outbreak of common sense (Score:2)
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If her employers search for her name using a search engine and trust spam links and such, well, that's not a company she would want to work for anyway, I assume. They'd be fucking idiots (like people who judge others based on behavior online, which has nothing to do with their behavior offline in most cases). Yahoo is just a search engine anyway, they don't and shouldn't have any or little responsibility for websites they link to.
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Well, I just typed "Anonymous Coward" into Google. Not a single page about SEO. Seems your SEO abilities are not that good. ;-)
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I'm all for you not being able to sue when you've made information public and search engines index that. But she doesn't have commericial interest in her own name? Really, now? Seeing how many employers, etc. google a candidate's name before the interview, I think that everyone has commercial interest in their own name
If you Google for my name you'll get a pile of results that are me and a pile of results for other people who have the same name. If I have a commercial interest in my own name, so do they. If they don't like what I'm posting because it happens to have their name on it, I don't see why they should be able to sue me for doing it in my own name, and vice versa. Have people really not learned yet that a name is not a unique identifier?
Beverly Stayart free porn (Score:5, Funny)
Python? (Score:5, Funny)
Beverly Stayart free porn sex sex anal Beverly Stayart free free porn sex sex anal sex midget teen teens sexy sex Beverly Stayart dirty sex orgy anal lube sex sex teens Beverly Stayart free porn sex sex anal Beverly Stayart free free porn sex sex anal sex midget teen teens sexy sex Beverly Stayart dirty sex orgy anal lube sex sex teens Beverly Stayart free porn sex sex anal Beverly Stayart
"Could I have that without so much Beverly Stayart in it?"
"You mean free porn sex sex anal free free porn sex sex anal sex midget teen teens sexy sex dirty sex orgy anal lube sex sex teens free porn sex sex anal free free porn sex sex anal sex midget teen teens sexy sex dirty sex orgy anal lube sex sex teens free porn sex sex anal? Eugh!"
"What do you mean, 'Eugh!'? I don't like Beverly Stayart!"
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I'm surprised the lameness filter let that through. :)
Oh well, can't blame /. for letting freedom have the upper hand, and letting moderation rule out the true page lenghtening post.
So what if she did? (Score:5, Interesting)
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So what if she did have a "commercial interest" to protect?
I don't understand how she could NOT have a commercial interest to protect. Each of us is an employable worker, which is a business contract for both employer and employee. If her ability to become employed is damaged by Yahoo search results on her name (and we should all assume prospective employers are Googling/Yahooing the names of applicants), then that budding business contract could be materially damaged.
Re:So what if she did? (Score:5, Insightful)
And in her case, she should be glad her search results are polluted with links that are obviously unrelated to her. It will cause any potential employer who might search her name to question the legitimacy of anything he finds.
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A "commercial interest" is not just whatever someone thinks it is. To maintain an action under the Lanham Act you must meet the definition of a "commercial interest" as used/implied by the Act. The court tells you what that means in the opinion.
Stayart’s argument hinges on the claim that by virtue
of her extensive activities, her name has commercial
value. These include: humanitarian efforts on behalf of
baby seals, wolves and wild horses; what she describes
as “scholarly posts” on a website;
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I would have thought that the key part of the Act was not the "commercial interest" but the fact that it requires that said interests be damaged by a competitor.
In this case, it is most unlikely Yahoo! is a competitor in the baby seal rescuing market. And to judge by past performance, it's hard to describe them as much of a competitor at all.
The advantage of that approach is that charities are quite significant businesses and those who are, in effect, charity celebrities have market value by right of being
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If you're going to file a claim under trademark law (Lanham Act), step one would be to own a trademark.
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Based on the description of her claimed "commercial" interest in her name, I'd say it's because she's idle and rich, or a dabbling housewife. In either case, it seems true that she had no real commercial interest in her name. Would definitely have been more interesting had this been a professional actively seeking a job who had filed this lawsuit.
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And money. Rights and money. And soda machines.
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Business model (Score:2)
Backwards thinking court (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Backwards thinking court (Score:5, Insightful)
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Someone who is googling and not testing whether the results are false is probably someone you don't want to work for.
That's not a luxury most people have.
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"Bob, we'll have to let you go based on the charges that were filed against you yesterday."
"Huh? What?!"
"You got a DUI and ran over a school bus."
*Googles* "That's another Robert Smith in another state."
"Sure it is. Clear out your desk immediately."
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False is rather relative in the case of search results. The results may be false for one person and accurate for another. Further I believe that search engines often rank results on popularity which has little to do with accuracy.
Backwards thinking poster (Score:2)
Yes, it is a damn shame the judge didn't call you up for a definition of "commercial interest", and instead he turned to the musty old ivory tower elitist law books, which are totally out of touch with Joe on the street in REAL AMERICA. In this case, the plaintiff sued under trademark law, for advertising that, by "false or misleading representation of fact, which -- is likely to...deceive as to the...sponsorship or approval of his or her goods, services or commercial activity by another person".
That's
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Okay, so... Googling my real name gets you someone else. We can't both be the top set of results. Now what?
The problem isn't Yahoo/Google, the problem is companies that think real names are a unique identifier.
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Again, that is just insane. What kind of fucking retarded employer would not only judge someone based on online behavior (which mostly has nothing to do with offline behavior, as people react differently offline than online in most cases), but trust spam results and such? Not one you'd want to work for, that's who.
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I have no idea why you are apparently working from the assumption that the job-hunting process involves sitting on the living roo
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"consists chiefly of those who are willing to, you know, employ you and send you a regular paycheck for the foreseeable future."
Now, now. I said "want to work for" not "need to work for." I was demonstrating that they are obviously idiots.
"I have no idea why you are apparently working from the assumption that the job-hunting process involves sitting on the living room floor sorting the numerous large stacks of job offers"
I didn't, you just misinterpreted what I said.
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"You look up each name in google and within 15 seconds decide to toss or keep"
There's the first mistake! Instead of (tedious, but accurate) actually finding out their skills, they take the quick and inaccurate way out and judge people by online behavior (which might not even be them).
"Now which one seems more probable?"
Which one seems more fair and accurate? This is the error of lazy employers.
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You don’t take the tedious but accurate route to narrow down 100+ applicants. You take the quick and inaccurate way, narrow that down to a dozen or so, and hopefully you didn’t get rid of the person who was really the right one for the job... then you have a manageable task: finding out the skills of whoever made the initial cut and selecting the right one for the job.
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"can easily take a job offer off the table"
So in other words, be a mindless drone? Yes. I realize that, however, that doesn't make it any less idiotic.
Homophones (Score:2)
Was Yahoo's search engine not able discriminate between Stayart and "Stay Hard"?
eBay (Score:2)
Where there any sponsored ads to buy her on eBay? Inquiring minds want to know.
What (Score:2, Interesting)
Yahoo is just a search engine, as far as I know they don't have any responsibility for the websites that people find while using it (if they do, they shouldn't). Good thing she lost, because she's a fucking idiot.
perfect job for 4chan... (Score:3, Funny)
Does that mean I can't sue? (Score:2)
Because everytime I google myself, I get all those pictures of dumb-looking men, many of whom buy car insurance from small lizards.
Her initials sum up her case... (Score:2)
RTFA (Score:2)
Kinky.
Of course. All of my posts are scholarly as well.
She got what she wanted (Score:5, Interesting)
She may have lost in court, but if you search for "Beverly Stayart" now, the first result is actually her.
Be careful what you wish for.
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Maybe she prefers it this way...
For that matter, how do you know this wasn’t her plan all along...?
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That's a lot of time & money to spend on such an endeavor.
This isn't idle. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a somewhat important story. It isn't idle.
The interesting thing here is that her suit worked. I just searched google and yahoo for Beverly Stayart, and none of the kind of websites she was talking about came up.
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Nothing about nothing.
Bad ruling (Score:2)
The court shouldn't've ruled she had no commercial interest in her name. Down that path lies a situation where nobody can get redress for libel and slander because they had no interest in their good name. They should've ruled simply that nobody has a right to be the only subject of any particular search. She can hold the search engine liable if she can show the results weren't responsive to that particular search but the search engine put them in anyway. She can't hold the seach engine liable for results th
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The court ruled only that she had no "commercial interest" in her name under the trademark law she sued under. This has nothing to do with "intrest in her good name" under libel and slander law.
Beverly Stayart? Pfffft. (Score:5, Funny)
Let's just hope that Bobbie Goatse never googles herself.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to sue her folks? (Score:2)
Silver lining (Score:3, Funny)
Cases like this are good in a way.
Think about it: in 2000 years, long after the American Empire collapses to the Canadian Hordes, scholars will look back at the US legal code and declare it to be the more comprehensive in existence, covering every conceivable eventuality, no matter how brain-dead.
I did a search for "Beverly Stayart".. (Score:2)
Dude Hardman (Score:3, Funny)
Dammit! (Score:3, Funny)
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Maybe her hope was that by starting a lawsuit, she would bury those sites with news articles about her own case.
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Not really - it was rejected because she couldn't show damage to commercial interests, not because it was bat-crap insane. If this ruling is followed through to its logical conclusion, anyone who DOES run a small business (or a large business) will be able to bring a sucessful claim against a search engine because their algorithm leaves unsavoury results near legitimate information about that person. Now, that doesn't mean that any other court will accept this position (doesn't say it's a precedent-setting
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You have a bizarre version of logical conclusion. For example, let us say a crazy person brings a wrongful death suit against Google, on the grounds that their father had a heart attack after getting some porn in his search results. If the court rejects the claim because the father did not die from his heart attack (and thus it cannot be wrongful death without a death) the logical conclusion is NOT that Google would be automatically guilty any time anybody does die while using the internet.
In this inst
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See, that doesn't make sense to me. If someone's argument is wrong at several points, you explain each & every single point where it is wrong. You break every point in the logical chain that you can.
She sued because her name came up with unsavoury results, that's insane and I'd rather it be thrown out because it's fundamentally insane than because this particular means of trying to establish liability doesn't apply. This way it just looks like an open door for (a) her to try and get in with a different
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See, that doesn't make sense to me. If someone's argument is wrong at several points, you explain each & every single point where it is wrong. You break every point in the logical chain that you can.
Why? It's enough to dismiss the case. If they want to try again, they can refile.
I'd rather it be thrown out because it's fundamentally insane
Sure, but that's more work. This is cut and dried, so no need to examine and prove the insanity therein.
This way it just looks like an open door for (a) her to try and get in with a different law (b) anyone else with a commercial interest to protect to fire up a search engine and see if they have an unexpected payday waiting.
a) she's welcome to try and b) this isn't something that establishes precedent (IANAL), so nothing changes.
yahoo could classify pages (Score:2)
baysian classifiers can do a good job on emails. Why not on web pages ? The index entry could be tagged with adult , pharmaceutical etc .
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Sounds like a protection racket to me (Score:2)
Hmm? So basically I can smear your name with any crap I can think of, and it should be ok because you can then pay some other sleazeballs to link-spam and game google to bury the nasty bits?
Surely you can't be serious there.
For a start it's basically a DIY prote