KOTA KINABALU: A popular Indian cuisine restaurant here
that is recommended by travel guide Lonely Planet, is suing a
blogger and Google for defamation.
Jothy's Fish Head Curry restaurant director Tharumaraj
Sivaperumal filed a RM6mil civil suit at the Kota Kinabalu
High Court here Monday, naming blogger Poh Huai Bin as
first defendant and California-based Google Inc as second
defendant.
The suit is arising from some allegedly defamatory statements
about Jothy's Fish Head Curry restaurant posted in May last
year by Poh, originally from Sibu in Sarawak and now residing
in Kuala Lumpur.
Jothy's, represented by counsel Marcel Jude Joseph, is
seeking exemplary or punitive damages to deter them from
making similar statements in future and an order to restrain
Poh from defaming the restaurant on the Internet.
Jothy's is also seeking an order from the court to remove
the offending articles from Google and other popular search
engines used on the Internet.
The company claimed that the alleged defamatory statements
published by both the defendants tended to prejudice against
the plaintiff in the conduct of its business and deter others
from dealing with it and were injurious to the business.
As a result of the defendants' action, the plaintiff claimed it
had suffered loss and damage, and its reputation had been
affected both locally and internationally.
The plaintiff claimed that the good reputation of the restaurant,
in operation since 1987, was known globally and reported as a
well-known destination in Kota Kinabalu and Sabah, in the global
television and book series Lonely Planet, referred to as an
authority for tourists throughout the world.
The plaintiff also claimed that the posting and articles of
the first defendant were available and read by Internet
users throughout Sabah and Malaysia, adding that the second
defendant conducted business within the jurisdiction of
Malaysian courts because its search engine was used regularly
by Internet users in the country.
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