Justice Melinda Richards

Google has lost its challenge to a ruling that it pay a Melbourne gangland lawyer $40,000 for the results of an internet search that included a link to a defamatory article, with an appeals court affirming the search engine giant was a publisher of the results.

Google has been ordered to pay Melbourne gangland lawyer George Defteros $40,000 after it was found to have defamed him by publishing a link to an article that implied he had “crossed the already blurred line” between being a criminal solicitor and being a confidant to his underworld clients.