Getting this to "hit the court" is a non-trivial problem for someone without access to the legal system. So in order to help the OP should we suggest she contact...whom? the EFF? The ACLU? Who can help with these sorts of legal issues?
The next person Google does that too gets even more money!
Obviously this thread is evidence in the pastor's favor.
on edit: obviously the OP has been harmed by Google's actions, but I think the pastor can show they have been harmed more. Also being a pastor and stuff, it's a good thing Google is made of money.
In my case, I'm sure I've been rejected from job applications because anyone inexpertly Googling will find there are many people that have the same name as I do, but have been arrested for misdemeanors or even a murder.
Just last week, a guy from a BnB told me he was nervous because he thought I was a dangerous man because of the Google results he got.
So, it would seem that you are involuntarily being dragged to try to compete on Google's search results, even if you're a privacy-minded person.
The only real (imperfect) thing you can if it becomes a problem is to adopt some working name variant that is unique. But that only really helps if you do it up-front.
ADDED: You're probably reasonably safe with a common name. No one expects Joe Smith to be unique. The real problem is when you share a name with only one or two people and they have a big and negative Internet presence.
it's easy to say "you should sue" but that's a lot more difficult in practice.
This is the second time in a few months that I have seen this issue crop up:
Yes you could sue for that but I doubt that is what the pastor should sue for, as you said she was threatened after being mis-identfied as you, they were told of their error, they recognized it and removed her picture, then they put another one in of her again.
I think the pastor should talk to a lawyer from her state as to what she can sue for.
I fear that this situation will not last. I just googled the name, and curiously, the knowledge panel has a little link that says "claim this knowledge panel." Do you see that option; have you tried exercising it?
"Having access to the courts" is in practice _just not a remedy_ for an individual fighting a $100 billion company.
> it's obviously a tort case
Yes.
> and probably has affected her ability to work as well
That is NOT how the law works, or every writer who got a bad review would sue the reviewer saying it "affected their ability to work".
> so I suppose that means Google should end up paying a lot.
Unless the woman was already making good money as a writer before the picture, and suddenly wasn't, Google will pay _nothing_.
My guess would be that Google would stall the lawsuit for a year or two, then turn off that picture and pay the woman a few grand, but not legal fees.
Then in the next software rev, some picture returns, and she's back where she started.
This does not seem to fall under First Amendment protection.
The suggested plantiff is the misassociated pastor. Google is effectively saying that the pastor wrote the book, which is untrue and Google was notified of this and acknowledged it, and then they started claiming the association again.
This claim is damaging to the pastor in a clear way, and could probably get damages.
I would agree that the author would seem to have a harder case though as damages would be harder to show.
>That is NOT how the law works, or every writer who got a bad review would sue the reviewer saying it "affected their ability to work".
I thought it was quite clear that I was suggesting that the pastor should sue, and that it was a tort case for her. I was expecting that being a pastor - which is a semi-public role that it might have affected her work.
At any rate a tort is in no way like a book review and if you have a case where your work has been affected that may very well figure into the damages you will be awarded - if it didn't every medical malpractice suit wouldn't mention how their client was unable to work for months after the surgery.
Edit: This is Google, so what is actually needed is a legal team, not just one lawyer.
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of the legal standard is "reckless disregard for the truth", which seems like it has been met.
An entire legal team is not needed to litigate a simple case against Google, that's just not how the legal system works...
It has nothing to do with the merits of the case itself the tactic a company like Google employs is to just file reams of paperwork, discovery, delays, motion for this and that and each of them have to be considered and discussed and pushes thibgs out at least another day or two. They then use this tactic to extend cases into years.
Although a lawyer will work for a certain cut of the reward they need to eat in the meantime and won't because the case isn't being completed, and isn't going to trial, plus it eats up an enormous amount of time and effort for the lawyer involved cutting into other potential cases.
Eventually you have to call it quits and Google wins because the case never went to trial because Googles legal army was able to delay everything by abusing the legal system.
In short as the PHB from Dilbert once said "we're using the law to keep justice away."
That's what's happening right now.
You can go look at cases involving Last Name v Alphabet on the recap archive, they are typically represented by a single attorney. Below are a few examples, I manually filtered out pro-se actions with no attorneys, and class actions, but other then that just went through the list of cases looking for cases with titles fitting the format:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8060229/parties/el-mawa...
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6237000/parties/gottlie...
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8054663/parties/olson-v...
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8067002/parties/lee-v-g...
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/8133814/parties/kaufman...
Your links would be more convincing if some of these were successful, completely cases.
The question is not, can you sue Google/Alphabet without a team of lawyers, but can you _successfully_ sue them.
The printer screwed up the ad, it was supposed to read "Works on contingency? No, money down!"
30% of nothing is nothing.
Can you explain why the writer would get _any money at all_?
What financial losses have they suffered? Are they being defamed? Has it affected their reputation?
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Civil courts can't fix things like this! It will never be worth Google's time to correct these mistakes unless they are forced to by the government.
Searching the Internet finds thousands of cases against Google, 95%+ of which are settled in Google's favor. In fact, I only found one successful case like this, in 2012, but it was in Australia which has stronger rules on defamation, and Google had also implied that the plaintiff was a major figure in organized crime, not "simply" got the photo wrong.
https://slate.com/technology/2012/11/milorad-trkulja-austral...
Though I'd agree that millionaires can still afford a house in most of the world.