Google’s AI-generated summaries were found to have falsely linked two local publishers to scams
Google is set to appeal a ruling by the Regional Court of Munich that found the search-engine giant liable for the information provided by its AI search overviews.
Google’s AI Overviews had falsely linked two Munich-based publishing companies to scams, subscription schemes, and questionable business practices under some search queries. The court found that Google’s AI system confused the plaintiffs with other shady companies and that the claims against the publishers “are not even made in the search results,” per a snippet of the ruling published by The Decoder.
The plaintiffs presented sworn affidavits indicating that they were not connected to questionable companies. They had initially issued a cease-and-desist to Google, which the company failed to respond to properly.
Germany's Federal Court of Justice had previously ruled that traditional search engines and autocomplete were merely indirect infringers and were not fully liable for information they presented since they only made content findable. However, the Regional Court of Munich determined that Google was a direct infringer because the AI Overviews fall under content directly created by the company.
The court judged that the AI Overviews produced “independent, new, and substantive statements” through their review and collation of information from third-party sites. In the case being decided by the court, the AI Overview...
Google’s AI-generated summaries were found to have falsely linked two local publishers to scams Google is set to appeal a ruling by the Regional Court of Munich that found the search-engine giant l...