Google, Des Moines firm clash over photo on satirical website

Coverage Type: 

A photo posted to a blog that mocks corporate headshots has pitted a Des Moines company against Google in a copyright lawsuit.

ARAG North America, which provides legal insurance, sued the Internet giant last month in a case legal experts say exhibits an increasingly common clash over bloggers who post images online without permission. The lawsuit concerns a head-and-shoulders photo of Ann Dieleman, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer with ARAG. The photo was published in 2009 on SexyExecs.blogspot.com, a forum where users post photos of executives with satirical comments. Google owns Blogger, the company that hosts the website. The page with her photo was the top result when searching Google for her name. Dieleman, a Drake University graduate who works from ARAG’s Kansas City office, said in a statement that the website invited unfavorable comments by posting the photo. “We’ve followed the appropriate procedures to remove the content. However, after continued back and forth it was time to assert my legal rights,” she said. “Given I’ve spent the majority of my career educating and empowering people to protect their rights, I didn’t feel it would be right to ignore protection of my own when this situation arose,” Dieleman said.


Google, Des Moines firm clash over photo on satirical website