Miami Artist Uri Dowbenko Sues Google for Defamation
Miami, FL (PRWEB) October 16, 2013 -- Investigative journalist, author and artist Uri Dowbenko is suing Google for defamation over a Google owned Blogger website that he believes has cost him clients.
Defendants named include Google Inc, Larry Page, Eric E. Schmidt, Larry Brin, David C. Drummond and unknown bloggers “Chaospet” and “G.D.” in a lawsuit claiming $1 million in damages. The complaint has been filed in US District Court, Southern District of Florida. (Case number 13-cv-23546-UU, entered in FLSD Docket 10/01/13).
Dowbenko, author of Bushwhacked: Inside Stories of True Conspiracy and Hoodwinked: Watching Movies with Eyes Wide Open, is an artist whose website http://www.UriDowbenko.com, according to the complaint, has been libeled by a Google-owned Blogger website called “Encyclopedia of American Loons,” which, according to the complaint, has been “manipulated (‘gamed’) by Defendants through their use of algorithms to appear just below Mr. Dowbenko’s own website, so that the false statements and disparaging remarks about Mr. Dowbenko have been read by an incalculable number of people, including individuals and entities that have actual and prospective business dealings with Mr. Dowbenko.”
Google manipulated its search results, according to the complaint, so that its proprietary -- and allegedly defamatory -- Blogger.com listing would be listed above all other results created by all other internet search engines.
The complaint states that Google Inc. published an article on its Google-owned and controlled Blogger.com website, calling Dowbenko an “American Loon” and a “Batshit insane tinfoilhatter,” which the complaint states was “published by the Defendants with the level of outrageous conduct that constitutes malice, wantonnesss, recklessness, or willful disregard of the rights of Mr. Dowbenko and the damages that would be inflicted upon him.”
According to the complaint, “Other internet search engines besides Google, namely Yahoo.com, Bing.com, Ask.com, Dogpile.com, Excite.com, Goodsearch.com, DuckDuckGo.com, and Blekko.com have a completely different set of search results for a search of ‘Uri Dowbenko’ with no inclusion of the defamatory Article published by Defendants, who have been able to manipulate search results, so that this defamatory Article appears in search results just below Mr. Dowbenko’s own website. A copy of the search results from various search companies as compared to Google’s search results appears as Exhibit 2.”
Furthermore the defamation complaint against Google et al contends that “At the time the Article was published and previously, Mr. Dowbenko was a respected member of the community and the business community in particular.
“But as a result of the publication and acts of the Defendants, Mr. Dowbenko has been held up to public contempt, ridicule, disgrace and prejudice; has suffered great mental pain and anguish; and has been irreparably injured in his good name, business reputation, and social standing; and has lost the esteem and respect of his acquaintances, business associates and of the public generally. The Defendants’ statements are defamatory per se because they concerned Mr. Dowbenko’s trade and business reputation."
“The Article is defamatory on its face,” the complaint continues, “and the placement of the defamatory Article by Defendants’ skewed and manipulated search results exposes Mr. Dowbenko to hatred, contempt, ridicule and obloquy, and/or cause him to be shunned or avoided and tend to injure him in his occupation.”
Dowbenko says -- “I have no idea how much money I’ve lost in my art business because of Google's search results. Imagine if you woke up one day and found out that just below your own website, Google seems to have planted a fake website that says you’re a ‘loon’. Would you do any business with this person? I wouldn’t. That’s how powerful Google is and that’s why Google has to be taken to account.”
Dowbenko’s extensive writing includes hundreds of articles, movie reviews, interviews and investigative writing pieces for Fortean Times, Nexus Magazine, New Dawn Magazine, Paranoia Magazine, Steamshovel Press, Media Bypass Magazine, National Review, Spotlight, Nationalist Times, Chronicles Magazine, Nitro News, etc. He is considered one of Alternative Media’s foremost writers and media analysts and a distinctive voice of modern American journalism.
In 2000, Dowbenko became the founder of Alternative Media websites — Conspiracy Planet, Al Martin Raw, and Conspiracy Digest, as well as the founder and publisher of National Liberty Press, which published “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider” by Al Martin.
Also his virtual gallery New Improved Art has participated in art fairs in New York and Miami Beach
Dowbenko’s latest project is a soon to be launched website called New Improved Memoirs.com for accomplished professionals who want an account of their fabulous lives in their very own published autobiography for family, friends and business associates.
Uri Dowbenko, +1 866 317 1390, [email protected]
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