A Hong Kong entertainment tycoon has taken on the mighty force of Google, and seems to be holding his own pretty well! Albert Yeung Sau-sing has been given permission to proceed with a lawsuit against Google for its ‘autocomplete’ function, which sees his name linked with notorious triad gangs.
Whether searched for in English or Chinese, “Yeung Sau-sing” conjures up related search terms including “triad, “14K” and “Sun Yee on”, all of which are names of Hong Kong crime gangs.
The businessman, who manages some of the territory’s biggest celebrities, is requesting that Google remove the allegedly defamatory suggestions and pay him compensation. Such a ruling would have far reaching consequences for the world’s largest search engine, which generates such suggestions via a computer algorithm.
According to SCMP, Hong Kong’s High Court ruled that Google can be regarded as a publisher, and therefore sued for defamation, as it “recombines and aggregates” data through it’s algorithm. Gerard McCoy, Google’s lawyer, however, said the “entire basis of the internet will be compromised”, if search engines had to audit such computer generated suggestions.
Surprisingly enough, there is some precedent here. In 2013 Google was ordered to remove suggestions that linked a German businessman to scientology. But that would piss anyone off, surely.
Photo: Simon via Pixabay
Reader Interactions