Google 'autocomplete' lawsuit by hotel settled

Ballymascanlon House Hotel

By Suzanne Choney

Until recently, Google's autocomplete search tool suggested that a venerable four-star Irish hotel was in financial trouble. That was a load of blarney, and the hotel's management took action.?The Ballymascanlon House Hotel?sued the search giant, alleging defamation. The suit has been settled, although details of the settlement are not being shared.?

The hotel, located on 130 acres of what was the former Ballymascanlon estate, dating from 833 A.D., is also a popular venue for weddings. But couples, searching online for the perfect place to be married, saw Google's autocomplete results showing the hotel in financial receivership, and stayed away from booking their business there, the hotel owners contended. The old autocomplete result for the term "Ballymascanlon" is shown below:

The Irish Independent, reporting on the settlement, explained:

It was alleged that since about March 14, 2011, Google had permitted the term "receivership" to automatically appear in its autocomplete suggestions after the name of the hotel was typed in the search bar. Ballymascanlon's owners said this suggested it was in receivership or financial difficulty when this was not the case.

Google, in a previous statement to msnbc.com about the case, said that autocomplete "offers predicted searches to help you find what you?re looking for more quickly. These searches are produced by a number of factors including popularity of search terms. Google does not manually select these terms?? all of the millions of queries shown in autocomplete have been typed previously by other Google users."

The Irish newspaper ran an echo of Google's statement above, suggesting that the company hasn't changed its overall position.?

Nevertheless, if you now type "Ballymascanlon" into Google search, the word "receivership" is notably absent:

Search result on Nov. 22, 2011.

We've asked Google for comment, and will update this post if we hear back.?

Updated, 5 p.m. ET: "As we have consistently said, autocomplete suggestions are determined by algorithms and are not expressions of Google?s view on anything," the company said in a statement. "No money" was involved in the case, "nor has Google agreed to remove any terms that the plaintiffs alleged to be defamatory."

Related stories:

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/22/8956183-google-autocomplete-lawsuit-by-hotel-settled

the prisoner gene simmons my bloody valentine mario manningham mario manningham holes houston texans