FC: German nat'l railroad readies linking-suit against Google, Yahoo

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 11:41:20 +0200 (CEST)
From: Martin Virtel <virtel () gmx net>
To: politech () politechbot com
Subject: german railway lawsuit against google
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0204171139070.4998-100000@linux.local>

The interesting bit: they plan to sue in Germany because they think their
case won't win against the US 1st ammendment.

Second interesting bit: Google in Germany consists of three salespeople, full
stop.

The IDG story is inaccurate in one point: they are not going to sue today
(Wednesday), Google has until Friday to comply.

M


-- Martin Virtel

Internet Correspondent, Financial Times Deutschland
mobile +49 / 177 / 242 2889
text pager (subject line only) m () virtel de


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 19:52:36 +0200 (Westeuropäische Sommerzeit)
From: Martin Virtel <virtel.martin () ftd de>
To: eileen () google com
Subject: deutsche bahn lawsuit against google


see below

-- Martin Virtel

Financial Times Deutschland
Team IT / Medien
Stubbenhuk 3
20459 Hamburg
fixed +49 / 40 / 31990 / 245
wireless / fax +49 / 177 / 242 2889
pager 01772422889 () smsmail eplus de
-----------------------------------
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German railway operator to sue Google over sabotage links


By JORIS EVERS, IDG NEWS SERVICE
(April 16, 2002)
Deutsche Bahn AG, the German national railway operator, plans to file suit
tomorrow against Google Inc. because the company's search engine provides links
to a Web site that offers instructions on how to sabotage railway systems,
Deutsche Bahn said Tuesday. Lawsuits against Yahoo Inc. and AltaVista Co. also
are being prepared.
 ADVERTISEMENT

Deutsche Bahn recently sent letters to all three U.S. search engine operators
asking them to remove the hyperlinks to the online copies of two articles from
the German-language, left-wing extremist publication Radikal, which has been
outlawed in Germany. The articles detail how to cut power on parts of the
railway system.
"We wrote Google and told them that there is illegal content on their pages and
that they are linking to pages with illegal content. They have not answered us,
so we will file a lawsuit against Google in Germany tomorrow," said Christian
Schreyer, head of the legal department for media and competition law at
Deutsche Bahn in Berlin.
[...]
Deutsche Bahn will file suit in Germany, where all three search engine
companies have subsidiaries, because it feels it wouldn't stand a chance in a
U.S. court because the of freedom of speech allowed by the First Amendment of
the U.S. Constitution.
"There is no chance to sue them in the U.S. You are really allowed to put
anything on the Internet there," Schreyer said.
Related stories:
  http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO70203,00.html

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From: jean-hugues.vignaud () netintelligenz com
Subject: Re: FC: Judge orders XS4ALL to remove two pages, mirror sites sprout
To: declan () well com
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 10:49:28 +0200

Hi Declan,

do you think they will sue any site who have a link to these pages ?


_____________

German Railroad Set To Sue AltaVista, Google, Yahoo
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/0416suegoogle.html
Source: Network World, via The Virtual Acquisition Shelf & News Desk (Gary
Price's blog) http://resourceshelf.blogspot.com/

>From the article, "Deutsche Bahn AG, the German national railway operator,
Wednesday will file suit against Google because the company's search engine
provides links to a Web site that offers instructions on how to sabotage
railway systems, Deutsche Bahn said Tuesday. Lawsuits against Yahoo and
AltaVista also are being prepared."

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