After violating a court suppression order and publishing a murder suspect’s name, Google has suspended its Trends alert emails in New Zealand.
In New Zealand, among other countries, the right to a fair trial includes a court’s being able to order people and organizations to refrain from publishing suspects’ names.
Google didn’t do that. It says it didn’t even mean to, but its Google Trends alerts went ahead and emailed out links to a media report that included the murder suspect’s name.
A few days after the December 2018 murder of British backpacker Grace Millane, Google had sent an email to anyone signed up for its “what’s trending in New Zealand” alert. After Google’s news-gathering algorithm picked up a British newspaper’s report of the suspect’s court appearance, it automatically forwarded the story to all subscribers, including the name of the accused killer in the subject line.
That action violated a suppression order prohibiting publication of the suspect’s name or identification details. Google’s violation sparked outrage in New Zealand, which, with its low serious-crime rate, had been shocked by the murder of the young tourist, believed to have been killed the night before her 22nd birthday.
According to a furious letter published by NZ Minister of Justice Andrew Little last week, when he met with Google representatives six months ago, Google said that the company took the issue seriously and that they’d look into what they could do to fix the problem.
Six months later, according to Little, Google said that the answer to “what can be done to stop this” amounted to “nothing.”
When I confronted New Zealand Google executives about what happened they indicated they took the issue seriously and would look at what they could do to fix the problem. Six months on, they now tell me they can’t – or won’t – do anything.
Really? A company that big can’t figure out how to fix “an obvious risk to justice systems?”, Little said. Sorry, that doesn’t cut it:
I would be failing in my duty if, as a minister of justice in a small country, I threw in the towel and decided nothing could be done in the face of a giant international corporation thinking it could ride roughshod over one of the most important principles of criminal justice.
Little also tweeted out a video clip showing his computer search for the words “don’t be evil,” followed by his text selection of the words “Google’s corporate code of conduct” in a Wikipedia entry.
.@Google, don’t be evil. pic.twitter.com/OBPo8ub5rQ
— Andrew Little (@andrewlittle_nz) July 3, 2019
“Don’t be evil” is, of course, the much-mocked motto that Google dropped back in 2015 when it became Alphabet and decided instead to “Do the Right Thing.”
Little said in his video that, based on the alert, a newspaper had published the prohibited material:
We’ve had a situation where, in a very important trial – the Grace Millane case – a newspaper, helped by Google, has published information that the judge said was suppressed.
Two days after getting scolded by Little, Google sent him a letter saying that the violative email went out to fewer than 200 subscribers.
In the letter, Ross Young, Google’s government affairs and public policy manager, reiterated that the company has a webform in place where court orders can be submitted, saying that it had taken immediate action after to prevent a recurrence of the mistake. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen until four days after the Trends alert was sent.
Little hadn’t been sympathetic to the “nobody told us about the court order” line of defense. It’s up to Google to figure out how to comply, and it shouldn’t be all that hard, given that news outlets manage to do it, he said. From Little’s letter:
One of the issues Google has raised is they don’t know what suppression orders are in force in New Zealand at any time. This doesn’t stop New Zealand based publishers from adhering to the law but I have asked the Ministry of Justice to review how it notifies media about suppression orders as part of its work to implement the new contempt laws.
Young said that Google respects New Zealand law and understands the “sensitivity around this issue”. To ensure that it doesn’t happen again, Google said, it’s suspending Google Trends emails in New Zealand:
In light of the concerns you expressed this week, Google has …suspended Google Trends emails about searches trending in New Zealand. This means that people will no longer receive emails on any trending searches for New Zealand and provides even further assurance against any recurrence.
Anonymous
This should be simple. Big companies like Google have legal departments that should be very aware of court orders applying to the company. It should be easy to create a “blacklist” of names that should not be sent out to anyone who might be in a certain country. Google has done far more complicated things than this in the past.
Mahhn
NZ- wft goog, you broke the law
goo- sorry, didn’t notice, won’t happen again lol
NZ- just because you’re bigger than me doesn’t mean we have to put up with your BS
goo- we said sorry, you snow flake.
NZ- gah, get your poop together or
goo- but we respects Kiwi law, please don’t block or fine us… okay now?
Anonymous
Or…
NZ – your trending news feature violates our laws!
Google – feature removed. Fixed.
NZ – well we’re still mad…
DudeSweet
What don’t i understand here? Google didn’t manifest the article out of nothing- a site published an article with the suspect’s name and google just alerted people subscribed to that topic. How is it Google’s fault that the material they shared was published in the first place?
Jesse
DudeSweet, the suppression orders relate to the country of New Zealand. An article published by a British publisher on their site does not contravene it. In their mass emailings to New Zealand subscribers which included the suspect’s name (which it did in the subject line) Google effectively contravened the suppression order.
Similar issues applied when Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of child sex offencers in Australia in December last year. Although this was a newsworthy story reported internationally, it could not be published in Australia at the time due to a suppression order (due to another pending trial in Australian Courts that a judge determined might be tainted). It was finally publishable locally several months later when the suppression was lifted (second trial was discontinued). While it was possible an Australian might have stumbled upon the information if they went surfing the web or investigating themselves, it wasn’t being broadcast to them (actually, some did go looking, because even some local media were flirting with the legal line by saying “something big has happened but we aren’t allowed to tell you about it”. But that’s another issue).
Those who are in the business of distributing information have to be aware that just because something is published in one location, it can’t be assumed that they can legally redistribute that information wherever and however they wish.
Laurence Marks
Jesse, that’s quite a long rationalization of government censorship, isn’t it?
Steve
Laurence,
Pay attention… (sigh)
It was NOT Government Censorship, it was Judicial suppression in the interests of a fair trial.
DudeSweet
Thanks for the clarification- I did miss that it was a British paper that published the name/article, and this makes much more sense.
IO understand the need for courts to try and control some information sometimes, but it’s hard for me to rationalize it when looking at the realities of global (especially English-speaking) media. Anyone in the the free world (read: not in a censoring nation) can find any public information anywhere at any time. Preventing local news outlets from announcing this information obviously does not prevent the information from being made known. Should Google really be liable for providing access to information someone else created and for which anyone could have found themselves?
John
Agreed. The UK paper Independent had already published the name. Also in the same paper, was an article about somebody arrested on charges of child pornography. Not indicted, not convicted, not even “allegedly”. Apparently, the Independent just likes to word things for sensationalism. Might as well blame the ISP that hosts the Independent’s web site.