Google wins legal battle in Australia

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Australia's High Court ruled in favour of Google Inc on Wednesday in a case over the search-engine giant's responsibility for deceptive advertising in sponsored links.

Google appealed to the High Court last year after a lower tribunal ordered the company to take steps to ensure ads in sponsored links were not misleading.

The legal battle began in 2007, when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission brought a suit against Google after discovering that the content in some sponsored links was deceptive.

All five High Court judges accepted Google's argument that it bears no responsibility for the content of the links.

"Ordinary and reasonable users of the Google search engine would have understood that the representations conveyed by the sponsored links were those of the advertisers, and would not have concluded that Google adopted or endorsed the representations," the judges said in their written ruling.

Google has faced legal action over the same issue in several European Union countries and in the US.