Ulrich Richter vs. Google
On March 4 of this year, Judge Judith Cova Castillo had already determined that Google was responsible for “tolerating and allowing unjustified advertising and illicit dissemination of blog content worldwide.”
This forced the company to pay 2,000 million pesos for moral damages for being “oblivious” by not removing the blog that is hosted on its server and that, for years, has damaged the lawyer’s image with false information.
Google appealed the judge’s decision, causing a new sentence in the second instance. This was resolved on Monday, June 13, by three magistrates of the Eighth Civil Chamber of Mexico City in favor of Ulrich.
The magistrates condemned Google now for the payment of 5,000 million pesos to Ulrich for damages to his person, his wife and related.
This sentence denotes a precedent for the big technology companies since this sum had not been paid before.
a bit of context
In a first stage of the litigation, Google argued that since its domicile was in the United States, it could not be tried in national territory. However, because they have offices in Mexico, the justice determined that it could be brought before the Mexican courts.
This is a watershed for the US company. The lawyer mentioned in an interview : “Imagine what it means for Google. How many fake news blogs are there? These tech giants don’t like it when anyone, least of all a little mouse like me, is going to tell them to take down a blog. Because the day that 10, 20, 60 people alert about illegal blogs and ask to remove the content, they will have to disappear and they will lose their power, their dominance”.
On the other hand, there is no official information on the case of Alejandro Torres, author of the blog. It is unknown if he will also have to pay compensation or if under Mexican laws that guarantee the right to satire and freedom of expression, he will be exempted.
This is an open legal case, so the company is limited in communication about it. However, a Google spokesperson gave Expansión an official statement:
“On June 13, Google was sentenced to pay nearly 5,000 million pesos for moral damages in favor of Ulrich Richter Morales, his wife and their partnership, for allegedly having tolerated and allowed a blog to spread on the web. blog platform. Once again we regret the sentence that was issued on appeal by Judges Manlio Castillo Colmenares and Álvaro Augusto Pérez Juárez, who make up the Eighth Civil Chamber of CDMX, which we consider arbitrary, excessive and without any basis. Google will defend itself to the last instance because this ruling violates freedom of expression and other fundamental principles, and we trust that the federal courts will act in strict accordance with the law.”