A court in the Bavarian capital of Munich on Friday ruled that search engine operator Google can be held directly liable for incorrect answers generated by its "AI overview" feature.

The legal dispute had centered on whether the service should receive the same legal treatment as conventional search results.

What did the court say about Google and AI?

Judges at the Munich Regional Court I were asked to rule on lawsuits filed against the internet giant by two Munich-based publishing companies.

Google's overview feature had erroneously linked the companies to dubious business practices, subscription traps and fraudulent schemes. It had linked the plaintiffs with information about other, genuinely shady companies and invented connections that did not exist.

Google had argued that it was not responsible for the data processing itself and did not adopt the third-party content featured in the overview as its own.

The court firmly rejected Google's argument. It ruled that the AI summary does not merely display or link to search results but constitutes distinct content attributable to the search engine operator.

The defense had been relying on existing case law from the Federal Court of Justice, which protects search engine operators from direct liability regarding the simple listing of third-party content.

However, the court found that this did not apply to Google's AI tool.

Why was the AI overview considered different?

Because the AI summarizes results in its own words,...

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