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Out-Law News 1 min. read

Google sued for linking to sabotage instructions


Google has been sued in Germany by the country’s national rail operator for including links in search results to a site that provides instructions on how to sabotage railway systems, according to media reports. Deutsche Bahn AG this week won a court order against a Dutch ISP that hosted the articles.

The lawsuit was filed against the search engine company after letters demanding removal of the links went unanswered. Accordingly, the rail operator brought a court action to force the US-based company to remove the offending links and to delete its cached copies of the articles, a feature which allows Google users to view web pages even after they no longer exist on the original host site.

The offending articles were by Radikal, an extremist publication which has been banned in Germany. Entitled, “A handbook for destruction of railroad transport of all kinds,” they were written by groups protesting against the transport of radioactive materials.

Access to the articles has already been blocked following Deutsche Bahn AG’s success in obtaining a court order in Amsterdam against Dutch ISP XS4All earlier this week.

A lawyer for Deutsche Bahn AG explained that, even though the articles are no longer on-line, “we want the search engines to remove the link, because it still advertises a handbook for destruction. People will start looking for it elsewhere, and we don’t want that.”

Google said it is now complying with the demands of Deutsche Bahn AG. However, Deutsche Bahn AG warned that it still plans to sue AltaVista and Yahoo! if they do not remove links to the same material from their sites within two days.

It is likely that Deutsche Bahn AG sued Google in Germany, rather than the US, because the country’s laws do not share the free speech principles contained in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Google maintains a small office in Germany, with only three staff. Yahoo! and AltaVista also maintain German offices.

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