Court rules against Google and Yahoo in private video case

By Estudio Chaloupka

The National Civil and Commercial Chamber of Appeals overturned a first instance ruling that favored Google and Yahoo in a lawsuit for damages presented in 2008 by Argentine model and actress Silvina Luna. Luna claimed that the consent for the use of her name and image was of vital importance in her profession, but that Google Inc. and Yahoo Argentina used both of them without authorization by facilitating the dissemination of an intimate video and linking her with websites of sexual, pornographic and prostitution content.

Luna’s request for compensatory damages was rejected by a federal civil court but now overturned in a September 2018 ruling from the National Civil and Commercial Chamber of Appeals, who considered that although Google and Yahoo are not the owners of the websites linked to Luna, due to their actions it was possible to access those websites. “The search engines created by Google and Yahoo and their indexing allow thousands of millions of users to access a huge number of websites, among which are those questioned by the plaintiff”, the ruling stated.

According to the ruling, Internet users were given false information about the plaintiff, associating her name and image with activities that do not reflect her real profession and causing her a moral and economic harm. Therefore the judges highlighted the need of protecting, in this specific case, the right of privacy and honor above the right of freedom of expression. “The gross violation of privacy is a consequence of the information provided by the search engines that made available to users websites that linked the plaintiff with sex, pornography and prostitution, activities she was not part of”.