A French court has fined a blogger after it found that Google’s algorithm had caused damage to the restaurant it was referring to by highlighting her negative review. Caroline Doudet’s article, “What to avoid in Cap-Ferret: Il Giardino,” appeared in fourth place in Google’s search results for the restaurant. “I’m being punished because I’m high up in the results, and I have a lot of followers,” Ms. Doudet complained.
The restaurant is located in the Aquitaine region of southwestern France. The owner of the restaurant told French media that Ms. Doudet’s review was not good for her business. The criticism concerned allegedly poor service in mid-August 2013. However, the owner attributed it to the high traffic of the days, and argued that it should not be a general characteristic of the restaurant where she has worked hard seven days a week for 15 years. “However, Doudet’s article appeared consistently in Google results, continuing to cause damage to the business,” the restaurateur commented.
The young blogger defended herself in court, saying that she was being punished because it appeared high in the search engine results. The judge pointed out that 3,000 people follow Doudet’s blog, Cultur’elle, indicating that she took this number to be high.
The judge ruled that Ms. Doudet must only change the title of her article, but not her review, and must compensate Il Giardino with 1,500 euros, the BBC reports. However, the post has now been deleted, while Miss Doudet states that she will not seek redress in another court to avoid the agonizing experience.
Source: tech.in.gr
