Google owns Blogger. Blogger hosts the blog you are now reading, and the blog that has been the main attack venue against me. That blog contains untrue, vicious, hurtful and absurd accusations (e.g., I was imprisoned in California for four years, I am on a government list of sex offenders, I am a danger to local children, I burned my wife and I raped two human beings and a dog). You can laugh at the last one.
This would seem to be pretty obvious defamation, a violation of Google's terms of service, as defined by Google, and a sufficient reason to have the blog shut down:
Google says:
What is Defamation?
•False and untrue communication published with the specific intent of injuring another person’s reputation
•Injured person must be identifiable
HOWEVER, as absurd and obviously defamatory as the blogger's claims are, Google lacks the confidence to make an official judgment of defamation and to protect my family from our online attacker and those he or she may incite.
The company says, "We do not remove allegedly defamatory content... The only exception to this rule is if the material has been found to be defamatory by a court, as evidenced by a court order.
I've tried to convince Google that the material is so obviously defamatory that they don't need a judge's declaration, but they are committed only to protect their corporate ass against a possible suit by their blogger, not to protect people injured by their blogger.
I don't want to have to go to court to get a judgment. It will be costly, and could take a long time to get the judgment.
HOWEVER, Google has started to help me in one other way. While they lack the guts to accept the fact that I have been defamed and might be harmed or killed as a result, they are sensitive to claims that they helped a blogger to violate copyrights.
I have supplied evidence to them that my attacker's blog has violated multiple copyrights by posting copyrighted photographs without permisison. They deleted one page, and will likely delete some more.
Google has warned me, however, to "Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys' fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights."
- Google is more concerned about false claims for copyright infringement (and the opinions of Chinese government web censors), than about false accusations that I had sex with a little boy and a dog!
I can think of at least one case where Google made a blogger take down posts legitmately complaining about the pracitses of rather dodgy small press. It seems they don't apply their policy very evenly.
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