Google could be in trouble with New Zealand prosecutors.
It sent an email to to people signed up to its “top trends” service and named the person accused of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane, in violation of a court order.
Under New Zealand law, defendants and victims can request temporary anonymity in the run-up to a trial in order to protect their identities.
Now, the country’s justice minister, Andrew Little, is threatening to prosecute Google if the email can be traced to one of its employees in its New Zealand office.
Google’s defence is that it did not know that the court had issued a name suppression order. But a major principle of common law is that ignorantia juris non excusat (Latin: ignorance of the law excuses not).
But I think that it is more likely that Andrew Little is just courting publicity by going after Google.
After all, the email was for subscribers of its “top trends” service. This means that the content of the email was based on search data. And the search data would be linked to content that has been produced by external media organisations.
Apparently there were more than 100,000 searches on Google for the accused’s name. But if people search online for specific information that is illegal to be published, should Google hide websites that hold that information, even if they are legitimate news website?
Dr Pravin Jeyaraj 