Internet service providers such as the search engine giant Google highly value the first amendment rights of their subscribers. For this reason, they maintain the freedom of speech that they provide to the internet users who use Google’s services such as Blogger, or other platforms to voice their opinions.

Although these opinions may be damaging to the reputation of some individuals or businesses, Google’s defamation policy is to not bother removing such data from the platforms they provide for the internet users to speak. In exceptional cases, however, Google may remove or convince the authors of the harmful data to undo the damage produced by their actions.

If these actions are intended to harm your reputation in the cyber world, then they will be regarded as a clear case of cyber defamation. In some cases it may require the responsible author of such content to be stopped from performing such harmful acts. It is likely that the intended individuals may become victims.

However, as per Google’s defamation policy, a valid legal process is required to force the culprit to undo the damage, he produced. This legal process includes filing a lawsuit against the culprit, and providing Google with a subpoena request along with the court restraining orders to remove the damaging data and/or to release the personal information of the responsible poster.

The reason Google demands this procedure to be taken place for removal of cyber defamation is because, as per its defamation policy, Google calls itself as a “republisher” of the content, not the publisher. Because of the way it is titled, Google gives up its responsibility over the content available on its data banks that may or may not be damaging to some individuals on the internet. Furthermore, as per their policy, they demand the alleged defamation case to be backed by evidence from the court.

Google has defined cyber defamation as the false communication that is published with the specific intent of harming the reputation of another individual, group or business. Since they have described themselves as the “republishers” of such communication, they indeed have no responsibility over the damaging content. As such, Google’s defamation policy to not remove such communication from the internet is justified.

In their defamation policy, they mention the Section 230(c) of Communication Decency Act. According to this law, the internet services such as Google.com, Blogger and all the other services by Google are not held liable for any defamatory content published through these sites. Therefore, Google’s defamation policy must be considered before approaching them for removal of such damaging content.

With the help of such policies, Google helps maintain the freedom of speech of its subscribers. This makes them extremely popular in the cyber world. Since the phenomenon of social networking this is becoming an important part of many of the internet users’ lives across the globe. With the easy access and vague definition of the rules, this could result in communicated injury to the reputation of other individuals.  But Google’s defamation policy is clear on how they approach the subpoena requests of undoing the damages or at least, reducing the crime to any extent.