Australia: Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal upheld previous decision ordering Google to pay damages for defamation in Google v Defteros

On 17 June 2021, the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling of the Supreme Court of Victoria and dismissed Google LLC’s appeal. In the decision of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Google was ordered to pay AUD 40'000 in damages to the plaintiff, a criminal lawyer from Victoria, for the publication of defamatory content on underlying web pages. In addition, the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the finding that Google was a publisher of articles linked by its search engine results and was therefore liable for defamatory content to which it provided links.