Appeal for emergency provision pursuant to art. 700 for de-indexing from search results/obscuring defamatory websites from Google
BY
Mr. (General information to be inserted) and elect. Sun. in (address and lawyer data), who defends and represents him as per attorney special attachment issued on a separate sheet from which an electronic copy was extracted for the image inserted in the electronic envelope containing this appeal pursuant to article 83 III paragraph cpc and art. 10 Presidential Decree 123/2001″;
AGAINST
Google Ireland Ltd., in the person of the legal representative. pro tempore, of Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, as set out in the publicly accessible terms and conditions of service at https://payments.google.com/u/0/paymentsinfofinder#.
In the introduction
– The appellant:
– As an esteemed professional he is well known and esteemed in his environment and in the media and web world which he also uses to promote his business: given
-that, however, through the Google search engine, the following sites find space and visibility on the web with content that is extremely harmful to the appellant's image:
…List of defamatory sites…
as well as all links that have the domain name of the aforementioned sites as their root are visible; so it happens that they are immediately highlighted at the top as a search result by the Google search engine whenever any user types in the search terms:……….
– that Google is the most important, common and widespread search engine worldwide, which is why users' thematic research on a certain type of content inevitably leads them to access the aforementioned sites precisely as a result of the search result on Google;
-that since their inception the sites mentioned above and still today disseminate extremely slanderous, defamatory and denigrating contents, as well as clearly untruthful towards the appellant, whose image they damage, as is evident from the attached documentation, from from the screenshots it can be seen that on these sites there is a constant use of offensive and defamatory content which is harmful to honor and reputation with serious damage to the decorum and personal dignity of the same who suffers serious damage to his image and consequently also inevitable damage economic;
-that the persistence of the disclosure and diffusion of such illicit conduct, enormously amplified by the electronic context, makes such damage even more extensive and long-lasting;
-that the authors of the sites are anonymous and it is not possible to trace their identity;
– that it is clear that these sites were created specifically "ad personam" and with the univocal intention of targeting the appellant against whom every epithet, and every insult and falsehood is exclusively and unequivocally directed, as already emerges from the name of the sites that in themselves contain and/or all entities belonging to the appellant; that specifically and by way of example and not exhaustively, the contents that are defamatory and harmful to the decorum of the appellant as can be seen from the screen shots
– that, just for the sake of scruple and completeness of explanation, although the judicial protection requested with this appeal is independent of the truthfulness or otherwise of what is stated, the appellant absolutely disavows and rejects the accusations made against him in the reported web pages;
DEEMED
– that the epithets and insults addressed to the appellant, which are otherwise absolutely unfounded and untrue, damage the appellant's person both personally and professionally, compromising his image, reputation and honour; and that the right to their protection also exists regardless of whether the harmful act constitutes a crime or not, as the right to be forgotten and to privacy are worthy of protection in themselves;
– that the art. 21 paragraph 1 of the Constitution and 595 paragraph 3 of the Criminal Code guarantees everyone the right to freely express their thoughts through speech, writing and any other means of dissemination but that this right is limited by the protection of the integrity of the right to a name, to image, honour, reputation and the right to be forgotten and this also with regard to telematic tools;
– that in the cases complained of by the appellant which require current judicial protection, there cannot be talk of a right to criticize as this right appears to have been overcome in the presence of seriously defamatory and humiliating expressions, capable of generating a mere verbal aggression towards the criticized subject resulting in denigration of the person of the latter as such made the object of continuous discredit and damage to his image.
- that despite the numerous complaints made to Google via web forms, these specifically thematic sites continue to appear as search results through the Google search engine;
– that Google is required to avoid the dissemination of such defamatory information pursuant to European regulation EU/679/2016 (GDPR) and that the only way for Google to do this is to prevent such sites from being suggested and appearing among the results of the research and/or alternatively the radical obscuring of such sites or their removal, otherwise posing its co-responsibility for the harmful consequences of such defamatory disseminations;
– that the appellant deserves protection even if the author of the said sites creates new ones with the same content;
HELD furthermore
– that the legal action is directed against Google Ireland Ltd as the said Irish company provides the Google Ads service in the European Economic Area;
-that therefore the requirements of fumus boni juris exist as the injury can be deduced from the attached documentation as well as periculum in blackberry because in the meantime this injury continues to continue with progressive worsening of the damage;
– that the appellant's court is competent as it is the place of customer's home of the injured party, as well as the place where the appellant became aware of the illicit conduct and based on the criterion of the forum comissi delicti, pursuant to art. 20, part I, cpc, being undisputed in jurisprudence (see CASS. CIV, SECTION III, 8.5.2002, N. 6591; as well as, among others, CASS. CIV, UNITED SECTIONS, 13.10.2009, N. 21661; Cass. Ord. No. 18665 of 2005, Cass. Ord. No. 22586 OF 2004; Cass. Ord. 6594 of 2002; Cass. Ord. 6591 of 2002) that "In case of compensation obligation pursuant to art. 2043 and 2059 cc, consequent to defamation implemented via the Internet (...), the competent court pursuant to art. 20 cpc is that of the place of verification of the claimed damages as a consequence of the defamatory event and therefore coincides with the place (...) in which the offended party has its customer's home, since, being the main headquarters of one's business and interests, this is the place where the negative consequences of the defamatory offense are produced to a greater extent", the prejudice being related to the economic and social environment in which the offended party same lives and works, also specifying that “what matters is exclusively the customer's home of the injured party at the moment in which the obligation arose, since it was at that moment that the damage occurred";
All this being said,
subject to any action regarding compensation for damages suffered and to be suffered
ASKS
that the Court hearing the case wishes, disregarding any objections and defenses to the contrary, with an emergency measure to be issued without hearing the other party:
1) Consider that the appellant has suffered and is suffering, due to the sites listed above, a clear damage to his image and dignity as the contents are offensive and discredit the appellant by damaging his image;
2) Believe that in the name of the constitutionally recognized right to protection of the person, one has the right to have the right to the integrity of one's person preserved and protected (including the right to be forgotten);
3) Consider that Google is required to avoid the dissemination of such content and is therefore required not to make such sites appear as a result in its search engine or in any case obscure or remove them;
4) Consider that the conditions of urgency exist, i.e. the fumus boni juris and the periculum in blackberry which justify the issuance of a provision pursuant to art. 700 cpc;
5) For the purpose of ordering Google Ireland Ltd., in the person of the legal representative. pro-tempore, with headquarters in Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, to prevent it from being possible to access the aforementioned sites through the Google search engine throughout the world (or alternatively at least in Italy) or in any case from the aforementioned sites appear as results of any search carried out by the user using the Google search engine; or in any case order Google to obscure or remove said sites in any keyword and therefore remove from the search the URLs and any link to such links where the described violations appear; order Google to de-index unwanted links so that the content is impossible to find on Google.
6) Consequently or in any case in general, and also in the event of a change in the name of the aforementioned sites or the creation of new similar sites, adopt every suitable measure to ensure that the offensive pages are removed in a stable and definitive manner and that any defamatory content is removed and inhibited the diffusion of them and in any case of everything that could harm the person of the appellant also with reference to any future re-presentation or memorization and any indexing activities, as well as the disabling of access to the said defamatory contents and their removal ;
7) Fix, pursuant to art. 614 bis of the Code of Civil Procedure, together with the sentence to comply with the obligations referred to in the above points 5) and 6) of the petitum, the sum of money owed by the obligor for each subsequent violation or non-compliance, or for any delay in the execution of the provision .