Court ruling "bad news" for internet companies The High Court has said Google and its peers can be held responsible for defamatory comments posted on their websites in a ruling described as "bad news" for internet companies. The judgment, made in response to a defamation claim appeal, means companies which receive complaints about defamatory or offensive content on their websites could have to spend more in order to deal with them in a timely manner. The complaint relates to eight comments posted on a blog titled "London Muslim," which was hosted by Google's free Blogger service. Payam Tamiz was seeking a libel claim against Google over the comments, which were posted in April 2011 and removed in August 2011 by the blog owner after a complaint was made via Google. Although Lord Justice Richards and Lord Justice Sullivan agreed with the original ruling that Google was not a primary or secondary publisher of the content it hosted, they said it was "at least arguable that some point after notification Google became liable for continued publication of the material." The Lords Justice likened the situation to a 1930s court case in which a golf club was held responsible for defamatory material left on its noticeboard because it failed to remove it after it was notified. Ian De Freitas, a commercial litigator at Berwin Leighton Paisner, said the ruling was bad news for internet companies, which have argued they are more like telecoms operators that provide connections but are not responsible for what passes through it. It's a fairly big deal because what Google were trying to confirm is that on their site they could never be a publisher of defamatory content, and that's the point that they've lost on. However, the court denied Mr Tamiz's claim because there was insufficient evidence the comments were seen by enough people in the UK to justify defamation. A spokesman for Google said: "Services like Blogger help users to express themselves and share different points of view. Where content is illegal or violates our terms of service we will continue to remove it. The judgment sits in contrast with US law, where Google is not considered a publisher of third party content hosted on Blogger. Mr Freitas said policing comments would be a headache for small businesses and internet start-ups, which usually have some element of user generated content. It means they have to be careful about checking these things and spend time and money doing it.