An insurer (American Life Insurance Co) is hoping to use an Alabama state law governing deceptive trade practices to stop Google from prominently displaying negative websites about the company.Far out! They think they are so bloody powerful and almighty that they have a right to put their website ahead of their “negative, deceiving competitors” in Google’s page ranking, Jeez!
American Income Life Insurance Co. has filed suit in the Jefferson County Alabama Circuit Court charging that Google, along with several websites, are violating state law by “intentionally disparaging the goods, services, or business of the plaintiff by false and misleading representations of fact.”
American Income is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the McKinney, Texas-based Torchmark Corp. and specializes in selling life insurance and other supplemental policies to labor unions, credit unions and associations.
At issue in the suit are several websites that appear on the first Google page of search results about the company and that contain contents criticizing the insurer’s business practices.
Godly Insurer wants to sue Google (OMG)
One website, scam.com, appears under the heading of “American Income Life is a Scam.” Another website, pissedconsumer.com, appears to contain posts from former and prospective employees that claim the insurer allegedly engages in unscrupulous hiring practices, including inflating income figures and misstating the number of hours employees are expected to work.
In a letter to Google executives, Alabama attorney Richard Baxley said the sites are scams that are targeted to hurt the insurer by making anonymous charges under the guise of being “whistleblowers” serving a public service. As a result, he said, the company has sustained significant financial damage. (well… what goes around comes around, surely, duh…???)
“These losses already amount to millions of dollars,” said Baxley. “And we expect the magnitude of these losses –and their direct causal link to Google’s page on placement—to climb.”
Google posts search results based on a page rank or “black box” algorithm that uses the number of requests for a particular website and other proprietary information to list sites based on their content value.
Baxley said that the anonymous websites have figured out how to game Google’s algorithm to ensure that their sites rank high in search results. He said because of that the company is losing prospective employees who decide not to work for the insurer based on faulty information.
“We are continuing to interview applicants that have been scheduled to appear for interviews, but fail to do so,” said Baxley, a former Alabama state attorney general.
Although American Income says the damages from the Google postings run into the millions of dollars in lost revenue and a reduction in potential employees, the company appears to be more concerned about the placement of the negative websites, which they concede are protected under the First Amendment, than it is in receiving any actual damages.
Before filing suit, Baxley proposed a compromise that he said would satisfy the insurer. He called on Google to change the order of the search results so that the links to the negative websites would be below the second page of search results or come after the 25th search result. (WTF!!!)
Google, however, rejected the proposal, saying that it only provides access to websites and therefore, it is not their responsibility to remove any allegedly defamatory material from its search results. As a result, Google stated, American Life needed to contact the websites directly and any changes would be reflected in the search results.
“Google provides access to publicly available webpages, but does not control the content of any of the billions of the pages currently in the index,” Google said.
Google is claiming immunity from the lawsuit under section 230(c) of the 1996 federal Communications Decency Act, which holds that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another content provider.”
Baxley, however, is claiming that the Communications Decency Act doesn’t apply in this case since it involves deceptive trade practices as opposed to a defamation action.
“American Income Life Insurance Co. is not a scam, and is, in fact, a reputable and upstanding business corporation engaged in the lawful business of selling insurance policies,” said Baxley in papers filed with the court. “It is not engaged in any of the disparaging and/or misleading representations of fact alleged by defendant Google Inc. and the fictitious defendants via their seller-assisted, search engine marketing plan.”
The courts have consistently ruled in Google’s favor in similar cases.
In November 2011, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal sided with Google when a construction firm sued the search engine for posting an anonymous review criticizing the construction firm’s work.
“The district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ action, because plaintiffs seek to impose liability on Google for content created by a third party,” opined the court.
[Source: Claims Journal, hard copy]
Far out! Do those insurance companies think they are Almighty or what!?
I better get myself some blogger libel insurance, but NOT with Xchanging nor Allianz 
I’d love to see the books of a life insurance company.
My bet is that they almost never pay out, and if they do, it’s a fraction of the entitlement. I bet it’s left up to the grieving widow to claim, and they use her duress as a means of pressuring acceptance of a lowball deal, including signing a non-disclosure under threat of receiving nothing.
And more still nobody knows about, that it was taken out of the pay packet week after week, and simply forgotten about, and on death, claiming insurance is the furthest thing from anyones mind.
And if it’s the first thing on their mind, I’d bet they get agressively investigated for fraud.
Seems like a win-win business model to me – if your goal is “profit” … has anyone else noticed the proliferation of masses of these types of advertising for life insurance (especially on country TV)?
Ben.
Hahahahahahahahah! Wheezzzze!,,, So what does the insurance company expect when (name of company) ar****le is googled?
“Allianz = Bully” is what I want to see in the Google results. Why? That’s the truth.
Is it a wonder that ALLIANZ is trying to shut us up too (intimidation for so called defamation that did not even happen?) It is our plan to ensure that Google shows the TRUTH
I think it is appropriate that a small budget be set aside for Google and/or Facebook advertising. If only I had the cash.
For example, when the following search criteria are met:
- Search for Allianz or Xchanging or workers comp
- Search from Australia
Then an ad could be displayed for this site.
Perhaps Shine or someone else could consider providing a small donation in this regard. Online advertising can be very cheap indeed.
The public must be made aware of how broken the system is, and of how certain individuals within the system behave.
What a great idea that is! I may just ask everyone I know (incl. fellow partners in Truth) for a small donation for an ad or two, and also ask for an ad in lieu of “flowers” of “get well” cards. Hopefully we will be able to sort something out. Unfortunately, because we’re all seriously injured (on the back end of the blog) and on workcover weekly “peanuts”, we have been advised by our respective legal teams that we are not even allowed to fund-raise! How pathetic. WorkCover, believe it or not, sees ANY money, whether donation or even sales of your PERSONAL stuff on eBay (cos you are broke and need to feed the family) as “income” and may use that ‘income’ to cut you off weekly “peanuts”! We had wanted to start some fund raising / donations (even for media interviews – hey if they sell their papers because of our misery they may as well give us a small donation!) and set it up as a “trust fund” (held independently by our lawyers). That fund would then be used solely to HELP injured workers (and NOT for personal gain at all). For example, we were thinking of helping those who can’t make a bill payment (i.e. gas bill), those that can’t have an MRI (denied), those that need some food (parcel of food) etc. We were also hoping to have stickers (bumper stickers) made with witty slogans (i.e. injured at work, disabled by workcover + our website URL) and hand them out for free,also have pamphlets made to drop off at pharmacies and GP clinics etc. However, as I say, we’re NOT f*cking allowed. How sick is the system really. We are not allowed to engage in charity!!! So this means that we can only rely on our family, friends, and anyone else around us who may wish to help us with a small token – so I will certainly ask for an ad instead of flowers or get well cards or will happily skip a paid for massage (for pain relief) in order to have an ad.
Good thinking, None, as usual, you are superb!
Anyone else who’s got a good idea, feel free to share and maybe you too can help US (this site) raise awareness so that we ALL can make that difference TOGETHER.
For example, someone on our forum suggested making a “cookbook” (survival cookbook for when you are on workcover payments). So we could all add 1 recipe, then have the cookbook on the website as an e-book or something and anyone of your friends, relatives, etc may want to give you something in return and what better than making stickers or posting an ad?