Looks like a big fish to fry considering those are the two biggest search engines in the world. No matter how big the giant though, María Belén Rodríguez is ready to fight her hardest for her integrity. Rodríguez is suing Google and Yahoo for allegedly linking her name in their search engines to different porn sites which have in turn, according to the model, destroyed her life. Find out more after the jump.
Rodríguez, 30, originally sued Google and Yahoo back in 2006 and in 2010 was awarded a combined judgment of 120,000 Agrentine pesos, or about $15,000, which would then be cut down to $6,200 after the search engines appealed the verdict. Now, 8 years later Rodríguez is still competing against the search engines with the case climbing up to reach Argentina’s Supreme Court.
Rodríguez is a mother of two young children ages 1 and 3 and is also an actress and TV host. She claims that the connections to her name and the porn sites have done serious damage to her reputation and is asking the search engines to remove anything that links her to the pornographic sites.
Attorneys for both Google and Yahoo have stated that their search engines are nuetral platforms and that they are not responsible for how the model’s images are used by third parties. Alberto Bueres, an attorney representing Yahoo, claims that what Rodríguez is asking of the search engines is a form of censorship saying this:
“It is technically and economically impossible to before-the-fact monitor millions of pages of content available on the Internet because of their volume and because they constantly change. To argue against this is to favor before-the-fact censorship and to ignore the economic realities.”
To which Rodríguez says:
“They have ruined my life and now say that what I’m asking for is censorship. It suits them, but not me. Truthfully for me, having to explain every day that I’m not a prostitute is a daily complication, as simple as that.”
While we await a ruling by the high court which is expected to be determined in the next few weeks, what do you think? Is Google and Yahoo to blame for the damage to Rodríguez reputation? Or is the matter out of their hands? Let us know!
SOURCE: CNN
