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."
Backwards thinking court (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So what if she did? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:sanity prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
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 appeal decision), or that they will just flip the coin over and follow to the logical conclusion, but it's not a great victory for common sense either (as evidenced by the fact that the ruling harps on about why X obscure law doesn't apply, rather than applying some common sense).
Re:So what if she did? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 determined the plaintiff has no standing?
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.
Re:I dunno about that... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Backwards thinking court (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sanity prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
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 instance, a woman was suing Yahoo! because somehow, if you search for a name, any search results are implicitly endorsed by the person whose name that is. Not just one of them, but somehow, all of them in the world all endorse all of those matches, even though the name doesn't appear in the matches. She sued under false endorsement laws. The court refused to hear the case, on the grounds that false endorsement laws require the person to have a commercial interest in making an endorsement. The court specifically didn't even consider whether or not Yahoo! was making any kind of endorsement whatsoever.
Anyways, if somebody sues under, as you put it "X Obscure Law" then of fucking course the court rules on whether or not "X Obscure Law" applies. That is its one and its only job.
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.
Re:Backwards thinking court (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:sanity prevails (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:She got what she wanted (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe she prefers it this way...
For that matter, how do you know this wasn’t her plan all along...?