Google wins drawn-out legal battle with ACCC

Google wins drawn-out legal battle with ACCC

UPDATED: The High Court has ruled Google’s practice of allowing competitors to buy up rival’s trading names on ad words is not illegal, handing a massive victory to the search giant.

Last April the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission won a six-year case against the world’s largest search provider, but Google was given special leave to appeal to the High Court on the matter.

Today the judges have ruled Google was not wrong to allow Telstra’s online classifieds arm TradingPost to buy up the names of rival car dealers Kloster Ford and Charlestown Toyota.

The move meant TradingPost came out on top on searches on Google for those company names.

The High Court's decision means that the search giant is not responsible for ads that may be considered misleading.

In a statement the High Court said: "Google did not create the sponsored links that it published or displayed.  Ordinary and reasonable users of the Google search engine would have understood that the representations conveyed by the sponsored links were those of the advertisers, and would not have concluded that Google adopted or endorsed the representations.  Accordingly, Google did not engage in conduct that was misleading or deceptive."

A Google spokesperson said: “We welcome the High Court’s unanimous decision that Google cannot be held responsible for the ads that advertisers create for Google's search engine."

The ruling will come as a relief to search providers in Australia, who would have been forced to rethink their business practices, and possibly overhaul their sophisticated algorithms to avoid more potential legal strife.




Please login with linkedin to comment

Latest News

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm
  • Media

Sydney Comedy Festival: Taking The City & Social Media By Storm

Sydney Comedy Festival 2024 is live and ready to rumble, showing the best of international and homegrown talent at a host of venues around town. As usual, it’s hot on the heels of its big sister, the giant that is the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, picking up some acts as they continue on their own […]

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth
  • Advertising

Global Marketers Descend For AANA’s RESET For Growth

The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) has announced the final epic lineup of local and global marketing powerhouses for RESET for Growth 2024. Lead image: Josh Faulks, chief executive officer, AANA  Back in 2000, a woman with no business experience opened her first juice bar in Adelaide. The idea was brilliantly simple: make healthy […]