Gigaom reports Google has won a US court case in San Francisco court saying Google has the right to arrange the search results as they see fit.
Clearly, this is the complete opposite of the European court rulings.
Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land explains:
The basic factual allegations included the claim that CoastNews ranked at the top of search results on Bing and Yahoo for San Francisco neighborhood keywords but didn’t rank in a comparable position on Google. Plaintiff Martin asserted that Google’s unfair and monopolistic business practices cause him lost revenue and future growth and harmed consumers, as well.
The irony here is that the corporation (Google) was claiming that this individual plaintiff (Martin) was trying to silence its First Amendment-protected speech. The Superior Court agreed.
It is just funny how the US court system and European court system are so far apart on this belief and law.
Some folks at WebmasterWorld believe the US, especially San Francisco, court system "bends over backwards for" Google. Clearly, not everyone is in agreement with this statement.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
