Google vows to review legal checks
Company says Millane case suppression order came through four days after ruling
Google NZ says it did not act to block the name of the man accused of murdering Grace Millane until its own processes sent a notification about the suppression order — four days after it was handed down.
The search giant has given an undertaking to Justice Minister Andrew Little that it would review those processes after it appeared to break the interim name suppression order by naming the accused.
Little and Attorney-General David Parker met Caroline Rainsford, director of Google New Zealand, Google NZ’s senior manager of public policy Ross Young, and a Google legal team via conference call from California at the Beehive yesterday.
Google appeared to break the order by emailing the accused’s name to anyone signed up to its “what’s trending in New Zealand” email.
The accused had applied for name suppression in Auckland District Court last Monday, and appealed when it was refused — invoking an automatic 20-working-day suppression order. Young told media after the meeting that Google received a notification about the name suppression on Friday — four days after interim suppression was granted.
Asked why it had taken so long, Young said: “I don’t know.”
He said Google had a process in place that ensured court orders were properly reviewed, but Google would explore “what is possible in the future”. “We respect New Zealand law and we will respond to court orders when we get them. As you’ll appreciate, there are trillions of web pages, dynamic and active, on the internet at the moment.”
He added: “My heart goes out to the Millane family.”
Young cut short the media interview and walked away.
Little said he had told Google that its processes were unacceptable, and any publisher is bound by suppression orders “the minute the judge hands it down”.
“They know their systems. They can work out how to prevent that from happening, but in the end I’ve got to defend the integrity of our system.”
He said he was “simply not sympathetic” to Google’s difficulty in managing so much internet traffic.
“If they choose to publish in New Zealand, whether it’s a server overseas or not . . . they’ve got to respect our laws.
“Publishing across borders may be the reality . . . today, but no justice system should be held to ransom.”
Little said he would contact Google in the new year for an update.
Last week, Little chastised British media for naming the accused, and now a close friend of the Millane family has written to London’s major newspapers asking them to refrain from breaking name suppression.
The Government has said it is not currently looking at changing the laws around name suppression.