French Food Blogger Fined for High Ranking Google Article

  A French judge has ruled that a negative restaurant review must have its title amended because the article was too prominent in Google search results. The judge also orderd the blogger, Caroline Doudet, to pay damages to the restaurant. Ms. Doudet was sued by the owner of Il Giardino restaurant in the Aquitaine region of southwestern France after she wrote an article entitled “the place to avoid in Cap-Ferret: Il Giardino”. In the now deleted article, the writer complained of poor service and a bad attitude displayed by the owner when she visited in August 2013. - See more at: http://fft.ie/index.php/3192/french-food-blogger-fined-for-high-ranking-google-article/#sthash.gd9K6CV5.dpuf
 The restaurant’s owner said the prominence of the article, which was appearing in the top five results when users searched for Il Giardino in the region, was unfairly affecting business. The judge also took into account that Ms. Doudet’s blog, Cultur’elle, had over 3,000 followeres, a number the judge deemed to be significant. “This decision creates a new crime of ‘being too highly ranked [on a search engine]‘, or of having too great an influence’,” Ms. Doudet told the BBC. Ms. Doudet is to pat €1,500 in compensation to the restaurant, as well as €1,000 to cover legal costs, in addition to editing the article’s title. - See more at: http://fft.ie/index.php/3192/french-food-blogger-fined-for-high-ranking-google-article/#sthash.gd9K6CV5.dpuf