It was just around a year ago that KinderStart filed a defamation suit against Google, due to the way Google ranks page popularity. Over the course of the past few months, they've been battling in the courts over Google giving their website a zero ranking in Google search, which they claimed harmed their business. The suit has been tossed out. The Judge decided that KinderStart's case of "defamation" was a far cry from page rankings:
"KinderStart had failed to explain how Google caused injury to it by a provably false statement ... as distinguished from an unfavorable opinion about KinderStart.com's importance," the judge's ruling states.
The Judge will also let Google get attorneys fees from the company, though KinderStar isn't planning on letting it go and will likely try and head back to court. Whether or not Google actually intends to go after them for fees wasn't stated. Given that Google is a private, for-profit company, one must wonder how much they "owe" other sites for specific rankings.