German Court Closes Loophole That Put Government Health Website First in Google SERPs

A loophole used by the German authorities and Google to put a government health website ahead of others in search results represented unfair competition and threatened freedom of the press, a Munich court has ruled.

Last November, the German Health Ministry and Google joined forces in an attempt to steer German-language searches on the top 160 most common diseases to a government-funded website. The aim was for people to access verified information on those illnesses from a single source.

The Google-government collaboration had proven to be a major success, with the shortcut swiftly putting the state-funded portal ahead of private outlets, leading the Burda Group, which operates one of the most popular German-language health websites, NetDoktor.de, to file the unfair competition lawsuit.

On Wednesday, however, a state court in Munich ruled that private providers of health information were being put at an unfair disadvantage.