Michael Trkulja sues search engines over results
Defamation is always going to be a tricky subject on the internet. For the most part you’ve got outdated laws policing a technological platform that didn’t even exist when they were drafted.
Couple that with problematic worldwide jurisdiction, internet companies making billions and clueless internet users will dollar signs in their eyes and you’ve got a melting pot of litigation.
One such clueless internet user is Melbourne man Michael Trkulja.
Internet search engines cache snippets of the internet and present them in a searchable index for the general public. Common sense would dictate they don’t actually (inhouse content aside) create the vast majority of material published on the internet.
Search engines do have typically have a lot of money though and that makes them a target for money hungry opportunists.
Michael Trkulja was having dinner in 2004 with his mother in a St. Albans restaurant (the western suburbs, surprise surprise), when he was shot in the back by a man wearing a balaclava.
The police investigated and found no link between the shooting and Melbourne’s underworld. That however didn’t stop Trkulja from launching legal action against Google, Yahoo and Utah based hosting company BizHosting.
Some news reports are mentioning Yahoo and some are mentioning Google so I’m not sure if both were named in the court case or if Trkulja is suing them separately.
Here’s an article from News.com.au on Trkulja suing Google and another from APCMag on Trkulja and Yahoo.
For the purposes of this article I’ll just refer to them as ‘the search engines’, assuming Trkulja is looking to double his earnings and is suing both.
BizHosting were the company hosting the well known ‘Melbourne Crime: A journey into the Melbourne Underworld’ website. Originally hosted at http:/melbournecrime.bizhosting.com the site no longer works.
Trkulja insists that when someone punched his name into a search engine, the results displayed from the Melbourne Underworld website wrongfully linked Trkulja to Melbourne’s underworld.
Trkulja is ‘suing on the basis that the Yahoo page made it look like he was a criminal in the Melbourne crime scene, and so much so that someone had hired a hit-man to kill him.’
…really?
Not being a part of it I don’t profess to be an expert on Melbourne’s underworld but surely you need a bit more to go on then an internet search if you’re going to call in the hitmen?
Presumably Trkulja is claiming that he doesn’t have anything to do with the Melbourne Underworld, which then begs the question why was he shot? I mean if he truly doesn’t have anything to do with it, why would someone go and shoot him based off a search result? I’d have thought he’d have had to have done something, alleged or otherwise for there to be motive to kill.
Furthermore a police investigation found there to be no connection between the Melbourne Underworld and the Trkulja shooting.
So why was he shot?
Well one reasons could be that the western suburbs, let alone St Albans are the cesspools of Melbourne. Home to some of the scummiest people in Australia, people running around shooting, robbing, knifing and raping eachother is a daily occurrence.
If you live in such an area getting shot, although by no means justified, isn’t all that surprising.
Another reason could be Trkulja’s ethnic allegiance. Trkulja
says he is an organiser and a leader of the community of the former Yugoslavia in Australia and is well-known within that community.
Regardless of what the reason is however one thing is for certain, search engines Yahoo and Google did not author or publish the information linking Trkulja’s links to the Melbourne Underworld.
The website in question, Melbourne Crime: A journey into the Melbourne Underworld, appears to have been taken down by its host BizHosting in early 2008. As far as I can see, apart from Trkulja’s legal action there doesn’t appear to be anything else on the internet linking him to Melbourne’s Underworld.
If we humor Trkulja and hypothesize a win and payout for him, has anyone actually thought of the consequences?
Back in March 2009 there was an estimated 25.21 billion webpages and 109.5 million websites. Search wise, although no official numbers have been released, it’s estimated that Google alone provides results to roughly 2 billion search queries daily.
A win for Trkulja would mean some serious ramifications for search engine providers displaying results in Australia. Obviously nobody has the manpower to filter search results to ensure nobody’s feelings are hurt.
The greater problem though would be the certification that search engine providers are responsible for content published by third parties. Either we as the general public want the broadest information cached for our searching leisure or we don’t.
Even via the smartest AI currently available there’s simply no way to determine whether or not information is possibly defamatory based on local jurisdiction via content analysis alone.
Publishers are already liable and if found guilty of defamation or they voluntarily choose to remove content, procedures are already in place for the removal (either manually or via automation) of content in search results.
Between internet filters and stupid court cases like Trkulja’s, one can’t help but wonder just how much of a laughing stock of the internet Australia is. I think it’s high time a redraft of our laws that apply to the internet was at the very least considered.
The internet is only going to get more technologically advanced and sadly our judiciary are still living in stone ages.
The court decided that Yahoo were guilty of publishing defamatory content by indexing a third party website in their search-engine results and awarded Trkulja $225,000 in damages. You can read my full analysis of today’s judgement here.
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:24 pm Peter Fumberger(Quote)
Mate, you better watch your back, Mr Tru..Trju, Tjkr, umm Tkjlru, however you spell it, might get you in his sights. I’m sure he can find a connection somewhere between this article and his non-underworld connections.
Sadly though, just like that parasite Trad, and many others, these sites might give him a little bit of pocket money just to go away, save them the cost of a trial, a la Jackson.
We need stricter guidelines in Australia, in that if you lose the court case costs will, not maybe, go against you. Once that’s in place these frivolous lawsuits would mostly cease one would think, unless one is bankrolled by anti-Australian muslim groups, those believers in filth, that want the idiot Trad to succeed.
But don’t get me started on that.
July 3rd, 2010 at 3:47 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
s’alright… I’ll keep my eyes open for any balaclava wearing gunmen.
Context, context! I wasn’t sure who the Trad was you were referring to. Incase anyone else was wondering Peter’s referring to Keyser Trad who lost a defamation case against a Sydney Radio station in 2009.
The two biggest idiocies affecting online defamation in Australia at the moment are the Gutnick case and the fact that the onus is on the defendant to prove material is not defamatory.
The Gutnick case is ludicrous because anyone who doesn’t have lots of money and isn’t a business simply won’t care about the defamation jurisdiction in Australia. The Gutnick decision simply paves the way for anyone who gets a sniff of money to launch action from Australia against any company around the world and hope for a payout.
The onus on the defendant to prove content isn’t defamation means that any clown in Australia can file a suit for a couple of grand and hope that the expensive court process of defamation will silence their critics, regardless of whether the material is libellious or not.
Again the only people who can afford to defend against defamation cases in Australia are the rich and corporations.
Everybody else has the option of taking content down or going bankrupt defending themselves.
July 3rd, 2010 at 8:32 pm motiv8dan(Quote)
This guy is a moron, but do you generalize much? St Albans why not my choice of place to live, I have friends there and its not that bad, I have visited my mate numerous times over many years and never had any issues.
Also the generalization over the tennis fans is a bit much, agreed they are also morons, but so are the aussies currently in south africa who did our image massive harm, also the fights at the back of the MCG after a friday night footy match by drunken caucasian men who have had too much mid strength beer out of a plastic cup.
All groups have morons in them, thats why i like to single out the morons, not the whole group. keep up the good work though soapy, always good reading.
July 5th, 2010 at 2:47 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
If you’re just visiting a mate then you should be right. Try go out into the public areas some time though… if you’re ballsy do it at night.
Just make sure you’ve got an exit plan.
As for Serbs and the Croats, I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t explode when you mention the other. From kids in school, to randoms in pubs to tennis fans… these two groups of people seem to foster explosive hate towards eachother that usually manifests itself in over the top physical violence.
I’m sure there are moderate Serbs and Croats out there but buggered if I know where they are.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:08 pm motiv8dan(Quote)
I am one and could not give a stuff about all that rubbish, just want to enjoy a beer and watch the footy.:)
July 6th, 2010 at 3:47 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
More power to you then! I guess there’s always exceptions to the rule.
July 9th, 2010 at 1:29 pm King(Quote)
Buddy, Id be very careful with this article and what you are implying, the person in question will be very interested in this, that is for certain.
July 9th, 2010 at 4:02 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
That sounds a bit threatening.
I’d have thought Trkulja’d have his hands full trying to get rich suing search engines to send out hitmen after me.
July 12th, 2010 at 10:41 am King(Quote)
Oz, nothing threatening in my post at all, just concerned, because I honestly know this person, his litigation History. I cant say much more on here, sorry. Email me if you would like more.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:31 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Ah, so he’s one of those people.
Ah well, lets see how this Google and Yahoo nonsense plays out.
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:17 pm Not Impressed(Quote)
Excuse me… don’t you think the following statement is a huge generalisation…
Do you live in the western suburbs? No, I don’t think so. Probably a better question to ask is…have you been to the west? Because if you did you would know that people are NOT
September 24th, 2010 at 3:49 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Of course it is, but if the shoe fits…
Sure they are. Nearly every shooting/robbery article that hits the national news has ‘the western suburbs of sydney’ in the copy. Either that or it’s the western suburbs of Melbourne.
Does genetic blindness run in your family. Seriously, go down to your local shopping area and have a look around. Nothing but parasites and thugs.
My opinion of western suburbs does stem from personal experience. Haven’t lived there but I did have to study there a bit and then there was the dreaded visits to see random friends or go to parties and what not.
October 17th, 2010 at 5:34 am ausGeoff(Quote)
I’m thinking that one of the first things Mr Trkulja needs to do is to buy a couple of vowels.
November 23rd, 2010 at 2:02 am Joe(Quote)
ozsoapbox your posts about Yugoslavs, Croats, Serbs and the western suburbs show that you obviously have no real understanding of the ethnic groups or geographic area of the western suburbs.
Its quite obvious that you probably have lived some sheltered private school boys life in the inner eastern suburbs.
November 23rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I might not know the geographical specifics… but I do know that you’ve got your Asians clinging to the inner west, Africans slightly northwest and then a whole bunch of Europeans out further.
Admittedly things might have changed over the past five years but I doubt not too much.
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:36 pm ausGeoff(Quote)
If that were the case Joe, then I can guarantee that Oz would no doubt have received a FAR better education than any of the ethnic groups living in Melbourne’s western suburbs! Most of the youth in the western suburbs are too busily involved in gang warfare to bother with something as unimportant as getting an education LOL.
In 2009-2010 there were 1192 incident reports to police from schools in Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Wyndham, Moonee Valley and Melton (all western suburb municipalities) compared to 4606 total in Victoria — or 26 per cent for the entire state!
It’s also no coincidence that Police estimate that up to 70 per cent of Melbourne’s illicit drug trade originates in the western suburbs.
And from the “Leader” newspaper: An attack involving knives and machetes in a Maribyrnong reserve has been used by a state politician to highlight the problem of gang violence in the western suburbs.
Youth worker Les Twentyman said gang violence was a “big problem” as there were groups of young people in the western suburbs who had called themselves a gang, such as “B4L” (brothers for life) and “TT/20-30” (2030 being the Sunshine postcode).
And from the “Age” newspaper: A helpline to assist Indian students who are victims of crime will begin operating from May 2009 amid mounting alarm over violent racist attacks in Melbourne’s western suburbs. The strategy comes as statistics obtained by the State Opposition reveal violent crime has risen by up to 100 per cent in some areas in the western suburbs over the past eight years.
Why is it that we have no reports of ethnic unrest in Ivanhoe, Brighton, Surrey Hills, Armadale, Mt Waverley, or Doncaster?
And why so defensive Joe? Live in Sunshine or St Albans do we?
November 23rd, 2010 at 10:43 pm Erica(Quote)
um… in fact, most of the Asians ‘nowadays’ live in inner east (e.g., Box Hill, Doncaster, Glen Waverly, etc.) In fact, I think a lot of the newly immigrated Indians clinging to the west.
November 24th, 2010 at 3:49 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I know a lot of Asians do live in the east but surely Footscray is still Vietnamese town? When I left Yarraville, Footscray etc. were heavily Asian areas. The Indians tended to be a bit further out.
Things might be gradually changing though, hence the reference ‘clinging to’.
November 24th, 2010 at 6:35 am ausGeoff(Quote)
According to the 2006 Commonwealth census,in Footscray, Vietnamese and Chinese accounted for 16.9% of the population (compared with 1.8% for Australia overall).
5.5% of Footscray’s population is Indian.
Only 39.6% are Aussie born!
November 24th, 2010 at 2:44 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
@ausGeoff
I’m not suggesting that they’re not Australian but a lot of that 39.6% would be the offspring of the first generation migrants too. Thus increasing the ethnic proportion percentage overall.
That and a lot seemed to like shopping there so I imagine you see them come from all the surrounding suburbs too.
April 4th, 2012 at 4:26 pm veritas(Quote)
this piece reinforces prejudicial racial stereotypes and blames the victim-Mr Trkulja for getting himself shot in the back.
It illogically claims about search engines (seemingly because they are poor, should not share blame for pointing to defamations just because it is a ‘new’ technology. The law is there to protect and libel laws to remedy defamations should not be treated lightly.
If you come accross a libel and perpetuate that libel by allowing it to be read by others (as a search engine does) you are as liable for legal action as if you forward a defamatory letter to a third party.
Just because the net has become a quagmire for the modern equivalent of the Poison Pen letter where cowards defame anonymously does not make it right.
There is a solution-search engines and the Great God Google can diminish lawsuits by acting when notified of libel and remove the offending links and defamations. They will not and they make it difficult and demand the rest of the world conform to US law and their ‘freedom of speech’ claims.
It is for those who profit on the net to clean up their act and not for lawmakers to bend to the will of powerful US corporations.
There is only one problem with current libel laws-that the poor cannot access them. There needs to be an accessible libel tribunal (as mooted by Justice Leveson in the UK)that all society can use.
April 4th, 2012 at 4:35 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Really… come now, there is nothing new about search.
You don’t ‘come across a libel’. A court has to rule that something is libel. SUbsequently without a court order you don’t have any authority to request something be removed from the internet on the grounds of libel, unless it has actually be judged libel by a court.
Please show me where Trkulja took any legal action against the actual author of the site Melbourne Underworld and subsequently approached Google with a court order stating the site was indeed libellious.
Of course you can’t, because he didn’t (Google has money… so just sue them).
This they already do, what’s your point?
As opposed to Australia, who think the rest of the world should conform and give a shit about Australian defamation law that continuously proves it’s not sufficient to apply to the internet in it’s current state?
April 4th, 2012 at 8:30 pm ausGeoff(Quote)
I agree that in theory this process should work…
The problem with this is that many sites (including libelous ones) include terms that Google will always list regardless of the precision (or lack thereof) of one’s search terms.
It’s known as “keyword spamming” and makes it virtually impossible for Google to weed out and/or delete libelous entries simply because of the complicated cross-linking mechanisms from one site to another—or to a thousand others.
—I’m not quite sure I agree with this…
It’s difficult to find any statistics about the crime rates for the Yugoslavian “community” as such in Australia (on a pro rata basis) but as far as a couple of other ethnic groups are concerned I note that:
I always consider it drawing a long bow to cry foul whenever anybody mentions a nationality (connected to criminal activities) other than white Anglo-Australians as being intrinsically racist; that’s simply not true.
Political correctness has gone mad recently, so as to not offend (!) minority ethnic groups in Australia.
Recently, VicPol described the assailant in the attempted rape of a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Melbourne thusly: “The man is described as about 30 years old, 190cm, dark complexion, very white teeth, and short, curly black hair.”
It subsequently turned out the guy was African. Duh! We all knew that. It also turns out that in Melbourne, Sudanese refugees are four times more likely to be in trouble with police than are the rest of us.
So… simply put, these sorts of figures indicate that a person’s ethnicity has—potentially—everything to do with his/her alleged criminal activities.
Therefore, it’s not unrealistic to (at least indirectly) connect Mr Trkulja with organised crime involving the Yugoslavian community, considering his acknowledged criminal contacts within that community, IE the unknown St Albans “hit-man”.
It’s laughably naive to accept that the attack on Mr Trkulja was completely random, considering that the gunman tried but failed to fire his handgun a second time (rather than fleeing the scene).
Mr Trkulja has also threatened His Grace Bishop Irinej and four respondents from the Serbian St Stefan Orthodox Church with defamation regarding his alleged anti-Serbian writings in various periodicals. Hence his “fame” as a serial litigant.
May 15th, 2012 at 3:25 pm ausGeoff(Quote)
I’m not at all certain if our libel/slander/defamation laws in Australia follow the United Kingdom’s lead, bit I thought this piece was relevant to the ongoing and tortuous Michael Trkulja saga.
There’s been a radical development in the UK libel laws following a 2-year campaign to get them amended to suit the needs of the 21st century with the inclusion in the “Queen’s Speech” of the proposed Bill.
The UK government has now published the new Defamation Bill which you can read here in PDF format (13 pages):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2012-2013/0005/13005.pdf
I don’t have any legal expertise at all, so it needs someone such as our respondent David Barrow of Melbourne to clarify the technicalities. I’m not even sure that out libel laws haven’t already been updated beyond the UK’s. (Hopefully, David sees this.)