Not for the first time, Google finds itself in a bitter battle with the French courts. ‘Centre National Prive de Formation a Distance’ filed a law suit against Google Suggest claiming that searches for ‘Centre National Prive de Formation a Distance’ presented the French word ‘amaque’ in Suggest’s results. ‘Amaque’ meaning ‘swindle’ or ‘scam’ was deemed by CNFDI to be libellous. Google fought back and won the first round by claiming that Google Suggest was an automated algorithm based on real search queries.

In round two a French appeal court finally ruled against Google due to the fact Google currently allowed humans to report offensive material, therefore offering human control over search terms and phrases returned by Google.

Previously, in 2005 the French courts battled with the global giant. A French resort chain made a claim against Google for allowing the resorts trademarks to be utilised in Google Adwords. Le Meridien Hotel chain sued Google claiming that by allowing their competitors to bid on their trademarks Google was harming their business. Google lost the law suit but planned to appeal saying “We will continue to defend against this suit, we believe it is without merit”.

It’s not all about companies and organizations attacking Google though, Google are equally as quick to drown any flies in the ointment. Just this week in Canada a small Canadian company called Groovle came under the mighty fire of the giant. Google wanted their domain name handed over to them because Google claimed that their domain name was too similar, plus Groovle’s site has a small search engine on it, which was enough ammunition to get Google firing on all cylinders – run away I would say! But did they? Nope. They only went on to win the case as the court overturned Google’s request saying that there was no confusion arising from the companies having similar names. You can imagine the party in the Groovle camp that night!

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