Google confirmed last Friday (17) that it had been sentenced in Mexico to pay about 245 million US dollars (1.26 billion Brazilian reals) to a lawyer for allowing him to publish a blog that referred to him without evidence of various crimes. Appeals to the higher courts.
And in a brief statement sent to AFP on Friday, Google Mexico confirmed penalties for “non-monetary damages” after the operation.
“We regret the ruling (…), which we consider arbitrary, excessive and baseless. Google will defend itself until the last resort,” the statement said.
The statement added that this June 13 ruling “includes freedom of expression and other fundamental principles and we are confident that the federal courts will act in strict accordance with the law.”
The plaintiff is attorney Ulrich Richter Morales. He accuses Google of allowing disclosures that put him as the owner of alleged crimes such as money laundering, influence peddling and document falsification.
“It’s a very important and relevant decision in this technological age, in the digital age, and I think it sets a precedent that can also subject technology search engines to liability for non-property damage and they are not exempt from that,” Morales said in an interview statement.
The lawyer added that the fine “should be exemplary so that the one who caused the harm would not repeat it and another citizen could not see his rights affected.”
It has required Google to remove the blog from the Internet since 2015, with eight short posts from 2014 still available.
Faced with the refusal, Morales Ulrich sued for moral damages, which he won in the first instance in 2021 and which Google appealed. This case can go to the Supreme Court.
The US company, headquartered in Mountain View, has faced similar lawsuits in other countries.
On June 6, an Australian court ordered New South Wales Premier John Barillaro to receive $500,000 in damages for claiming he was defamed in videos of a comedian posted on YouTube, which is owned by Google.
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