Dutch Dating Site Loses Lawsuit Against Google
Yesterday, an Amsterdam judge ruled against Dutch dating site Farmdate.nl, saying that Google did not have to remove sponsored links to sex sites when users searched for the words “Farm” and “Date.”
With the support of FNV Bondgenoten, the Dutch farmer’s union, Farmdate.nl filed suit against Google to get the search leader to block the sponsored links that Farmdate said was damaging to its reputation. Farmdate.nl is also connected to The Farmer Seeks a Wife, a daytime family television program.
In an interview with Radio Netherlands, the site’s owner Pieter Bosch, himself the son of a farmer, said “Farmdate doesn’t want to be associated with sex sites - it’s a decent site for farmers and not a sex site. Many people who were looking for Farmdate called up and complained that they wanted to find out more about Farmdate but did not want to get involved or linked to sex sites.”
Google refused to block the offending advertisers, saying that Farmdate.nl needed to take its objections to each individual advertiser. Eventually, the judge ruled that the terms “Farm” and “Date” were much too general to be exclusively regulated on behalf of one website.
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