Wednesday, May 02, 2012

French Group Sues Google Over Autocomplete Suggestion of "Rupert Murdoch Jewish"

Search Engine Journal yesterday reported on a lawsuit filed in France against Google complaining that its search engine's autocomplete function mislabels celebrities, often connecting them to a persecuted religion.  The suit, filed by SOS Racisme, complains that when the name "Rupert Murdoch" is Googled, the autocomplete function suggests "Rupert Murdoch Jewish" as a search term. The initial hearing in the case is scheduled for today. Last year, SOS Racisme threatened to sue Apple over an iPhone app called "Jew of Not Jew?" that purported to identify whether various celebrities were Jewish. The app was removed from the French iPhone app store. (See prior posting.)