Eight Questions For The Man Who Took On Yahoo, Google

By now many of you may have heard about the way Yahoo is blocking certain search engine results on computers with Argentine IP addresses. If you’re in Argentina and try to search Yahoo for information about Diego Maradona, for example, you’ll reach a dead end and be met with the following message: “Because of a court order sought by private parties, we’ve been forced to temporarily suppress all or some results related to this search.” 

Some of the details behind this situation have been highlighted in other articles, such as this one in Time Magazine. As a result, I won’t re-hash the story here. Instead, I’ve decided to post a Q & A I did with Martin Leguizamón, the Argentine lawyer responsible for the situation. What follows is a very interesting look at how and why all of this came about. 

(The Argentine Post) How did you get started with this?

(Martin Leguizamón) The first case began in April 2006 when a fashion model contacted me after losing her job as a marketing manager in Canada because her name had appeared linked to pornographic and sexual websites. These sites showed up through www.yahoo.com.ar and www.google.com.ar searches.

We analyzed the case and opted to ask a federal court here for an injunction that would use all means necessary to prevent her name from being linked to pornographic and sexual sites. The court followed through on this.

(TAP) Who are the clients you work for and how many of them have sought to protect their reputations through this kind of legal action?

(ML) I’m currently involved in 110 cases, including fashion models, actors and actresses, athletes, judges, prosecutors and lawyers, among others.

My best-known clients are Diego Maradona, Susana Gimenez, Valeria Mazza, Paola Krum, Romina Gaetani, Eugenia Tobal, Carina Zampini, Bárbara Durand, Florencia Raggi, Diego Torres, Isabel Macedo, Horacio Cabak, Sofia Zamolo, Yesica Toscanini (a famous model in New York ), Sabrina Garciarena, Nicole Neuman, Andrea Frigerio, Julieta Prandi, Pamela David, Karina Mazzoco, Sergio Goycochea, Marcelo De Bellis, Judge Maria Servini de Cubria, Eduardo Miragaya (a federal prosecutor) and Buenos Aires Supreme Court Justice Dr. Guillermo Sagues, among many others.

(TAP) What are your clients looking for?

(ML) In the case of the models, actors and actresses, they want for the search engines to stop linking their name to sites with sexual or pornographic content, or the sale of sexual services, etc. They’re also looking to stop the unauthorized use of images that show up via searches in both search engines. Argentine law explicitly prohibits the reproduction of photos and images without the consent of the person involved.

In other cases, we’re looking to block certain sites that injure or cause grave damage to my clients.

(TAP) In the case of Maradona and Yahoo, isn’t there some way to block access only to the sites in question? Is it necessary to block access to every site related to Maradona, which seems to be what is happening with Yahoo? 

(ML) Exactly, that’s what’s happening. As an injunction, (the court) preferred to block all information related to Maradona.

(TAP) Isn’t that somewhat like closing down an entire library just because it contains a few bad books?

(ML) Not at all. In a library, in the list of its books, all you will find will be those books and their titles without any other references about whether the book is good or bad, etc. There are no paragraphs in the links or footnotes that allow for misrepresentations or references to sites containing sexual content.

Here’s a clear example:

http://www.las-modelos.com.ar/modelos-argentinas/yesica-toscanini/ 

As you can tell, this kind of thing doesn’t show up in a library.

(TAP) What difference is there between Yahoo and Google? It seems like Google isn’t blocking access like Yahoo.

(ML) There’s no difference except that Yahoo is complying with the court’s orders through the blocked access and Google is resisting the court’s orders.

(TAP) How does this compare with what’s happening in other countries?

(ML) I know that in other countries there are antecedents similar to what I’ve done here in our country. There are similar cases in Belgium, France and Brazil, in addition to cases in the U.S.

(TAP) Do you think this negatively affects freedom of speech or access to public information in the country?

(ML) Not in any way at all. When people say this to me, I simply smile. I’m a great defender of freedom of expression and access to information. But when this causes grave damage to third parties – because of the commercial activity of a sketchy company – that company should accept responsibility for the damage caused by its activity and its modus operandi.

If not, anything goes on the Internet, even if it causes grave damage to third parties. Freedom of speech has precise limits when measured against the rights of third parties, and it should cede ground if it causes damage because individual rights should take precedent over general rights. When these rights are balanced, there’s no doubt that in any serious country with independent judges, individual rights should prevail over third party rights when an individual’s honor, integrity or name is attacked.

If it weren’t for these search engines, the names of my clients would never have been linked to sexual and pornographic sites. I want to be clear that it is not the content of these sites that harms my clients. What is being questioned is the way that these search engines return results for certain searches that make one think about the links. If these search engines didn’t exist, there would be no such damage because it would be impossible to access those sites except for a very reduced market of web surfers that know the URLs of each of those sites.

It’s easier to just enter a name and see what comes up, even if searching that name causes harm. In addition, Google itself says on its page in our country that it knows beforehand the content of each one of the sites that it indexes; it examines this before indexing each site and compares its words and pages with those of similar sites. This increases its responsibility because it is cognizant of the pages that it indexes on its site. These search engines themselves are web sites.

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