German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews (the-decoder.com)
869 points by ahlCVA 15 hours ago
Hfuffzehn 10 hours ago
If I get it correctly I like the ruling.
So Google has established a product called Search. For that product rules have been established. Google has monopolized that product.
Now Google is replacing that product with a new product. But they keep calling it the same thing. Because they want to keep their monopoly.
That is what has been deemed illegal. Gemini is not illegal. Pretending the worst version of Gemini is Search is illegal, because it breaks the rules established for Search.
But IANAL.
brainwad 9 hours ago
It has nothing to do with monopolies. Google was protected from defamation law with search because the page title and snippets were direct quotes from the linked result page. Whereas with AI overviews, the copy is written by a Google-controlled LLM.
Saline9515 8 hours ago
It should be noted that defamation law has a very low threshold in Germany, to the point that businesses routinely sue Google Maps users for less-than-5-stars reviews. Google had to change their display of reviews because of this.
Three stars review is taken down for "libel": https://support.google.com/maps/thread/367778263/google-maps...
HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44734895
Google maps german policy: https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/1699727...
Meanwhile, service in Germany is still rather poor (especially if you have children), but at least no one can complain!
CarlitosHighway 7 hours ago
applfanboysbgon 8 hours ago
dgellow 8 hours ago
harvey9 7 hours ago
arrowsmith 8 hours ago
y42 5 hours ago
7bit 6 hours ago
Hfuffzehn 8 hours ago
Yes, the monopoly is not relevant for the court.
It is relevant for Google though, because they want to transfer it to another product.
And the court is saying that whatever that new product is, Google is not allowed to mislead the public by pretending it is search.
fauigerzigerk 7 hours ago
conartist6 7 hours ago
Right. If Google isn't liable for that content nobody is.
tavavex 5 hours ago
Terr_ 9 hours ago
I recall "Large Libel Models" was one of the sobriquets going around.
smcin 6 hours ago
panarky 3 hours ago
So if the actual page is defamatory then Google quoting it verbatim is protected.
But if Google accurately summarizes the defamatory page, then the summary is defamatory?
andai 8 hours ago
Making the response consist entirely of direct quotes sounds like a better user experience than what they're doing now.
nonethewiser 2 hours ago
So AI isnt just ripping off the underlying information?
raincole an hour ago
That's not what this article says. If you think the article mispresents the ruling, then you should point it out. You say you like the ruling then proceed to listing things that you like, but are not related to the ruling.
stronglikedan 38 minutes ago
> If you think the article mispresents the ruling, then you should pint it out.
It seems that's exactly what they did.
raincole 8 minutes ago
nonethewiser 2 hours ago
I dont really understand your reasoning at all, nor what law it would break. What law do you think it would break?
It doesnt even seem to be what the article is saying. This looks like a section 230 sort of issue. Section 230 is a US law that protects platforms like facebook, google etc. being treated as publishers because the information, presumably, is just being passed through. But Germany is saying the AI results are authored by Google.
rtkwe 2 hours ago
I don't see a world where AI results aren't reasonably considered the output of the company. They're minced and sausagified regurgitations but they're not the original sources either.
nonethewiser an hour ago
kakacik 2 hours ago
Like it or not, this is how people perceive output from llms. Those ultra rich companies can't forever have the cake and eat it too, just milking global markets forever (I know they of course desperately want and need to, but that's their struggle).
I am fine with that solution since I don't need to shill for them for some ie investment or employment reasons. Less technically skilled people (aka your parents or grandparents) are getting their lives fucked up left and right because they learned to trust search results, and now they suddenly can't.
Own. Your. Shit.
crest 6 hours ago
The court ruled that the AI generated content has an author/editor/publisher: Google. It also ruled that Google can be held liable. Insert pikachu face meme.
boringg 5 hours ago
I mean was google search responsible for surfacing correct answers? I am not a defend of AI but this seems like a weird piece of legislation.
rtkwe 2 hours ago
Original search before Google started trying to provide their own answers was purely pointing to relevant pages, even the first iterations of the first results being replaced by the result Google believed provided the correct answer could be pointed to as simply providing an answer someone else wrote (and to my knowledge was mostly fact based questions; birth dates, etc that are hard to categorize as defamatory). Now Gemini is combining and mixing together multiple sources to provide a new amalgam answer that IMO is distinct enough, and applied to touchier subjects importantly because they're treating the search bar like you're talking directly to Gemini, that it crosses a line between referencing speech by other people without endorsing (OG Search) and having the company produce speech about the search (new Gemini infested Search).
ndsipa_pomu 4 hours ago
No, Google search was simply repeating quotes from other websites - those other websites would be responsible for their content. Now that Google is manufacturing answers using their own LLM, they are responsible for whatever results that produces.
9rx 3 hours ago
boringg 4 hours ago
jibal 6 hours ago
None of that is in the ruling.
Hfuffzehn 5 hours ago
https://the-decoder.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/26_O_869_...
"Tatbestand
Die Verfügungsklägerinnen begehren von der Verfügungsbeklagten die Unterlassung von Darstellungen KI-generierter Antworten in einer Suchmaschine.
...
Die Verfügungsbeklagte betreibt eine Internet-Suchmaschine unter google.de in Deutschland. Dabei werden nach der Eingabe von Suchbegriffen durch eine die Suchmaschine benutzende Person auf den „Suchbefehl“ hin mithilfe bestimmter Algorithmen nach möglicher Relevanz sortierte Ergebnisse angezeigt. Zusätzlich bietet die Suchmaschine auch als unterstützende Funktion ein Suchergebnisformat an, bei dem mithilfe einer generativen künstlichen Intelligenz (im Folgenden:KI) repräsentative Ergebnisse zusammengefasst und angezeigt werden."
No "Suchmaschine" + no „Suchbefehl“ -> no "Tatbestand"
No "search engine" + no "search command" -> no "elements of a crime"
h1fra 4 hours ago
People will complain, but eventually Europe will still be in advance regarding this kind of law. It's annoying and sometimes slows down innovation but US companies are just doing whatever makes money without restrictions...
l23k4 2 minutes ago
This is the kind of legislation that only exists to help the rich and powerful and harm those below them, it's certainly not an example of where EU is doing better than the US.
Or what, do you think it's a genuinely good thing that hosting negative reviews is essentially illegal in Germany?
lo_zamoyski 3 hours ago
> slows down innovation
A return to the classical understanding of the person, society, and the common good is indispensable.
saalweachter 2 hours ago
I don't even know that I would call it slowing down so much as constraining/focusing innovation.
There's three basic paths for a company hit by this ruling to comply:
1. Stop showing users generated content.
2. Figure out how to generate the content with more quotes and attribution to source websites, to regain the protection offered to search engines.
3. Figure out the hallucination problem, so that every statement in machine generated content is true, or at least defensible.
If this ruling forces companies to put more money into #3, whereas now they're coasting on good enough, I'd say it was speeding up innovation.Terr_ 25 minutes ago
hparadiz 2 hours ago
In reality Europe will be left behind as usual.
jmcqk6 2 hours ago
jijijijij an hour ago
Quite frankly, in this very instance, Europe's slow tech adaptation and comparatively little investments are a blessing.
At this point, there is nothing to gain but volatility. Let the US figure out the economic and social disruption, and then adopt whatever sticks. There is no rush. The useful parts got little moat. It's not like there is a magnitude of difference to justify the expenses and risks of frontier operations, in comparison to open models, or smaller players. Chances are, all of this AI business will settle on local models for most use cases. The US may get their first trillionaire, but let's be real, that's not because of innovation but corruption, exploitation and raging wealth inequality. If the AI economy is not panning out as "projected", there is no recovery. That money got converted to heat and single-use hardware trash. Not worth risking pensions and the social fabric over "the tech edge".
Swizec 14 hours ago
Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees.
Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger.
But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.
andrewmutz 13 hours ago
I think it's a completely reasonable position that companies making self-driving cars and question/answer systems are legally liable for any errors.
But if you hold that position, you also have to be fine with companies not offering products and services in your country. AI systems will eventually be good enough (in 10-20 years) for companies to be able to deploy such systems with sufficient accuracy to afford the lawsuits. Until that time, such countries would just not have access to systems before they were bulletproof.
NitpickLawyer 12 hours ago
> AI systems will eventually be good enough (in 10-20 years) for companies to be able to deploy such systems with sufficient accuracy to afford the lawsuits.
I doubt that will be the case, because of the long tail problem. (same with self driving cars and other ML related problems).
In fact, we have counter-examples today. Newspapers (even reputable ones) can't get it right every time, despite the fact that they have both trained people and in theory they're setup to catch that w/ reporters - fact checkers - editors. And still, from time to time, they get it wrong. (and I'm not talking about purposefully getting it wrong, just honest mistakes.)
What will likely happen with a ruling like this is that the answers will be hedged and legalesed and muddied up the wazoo.
jojomodding 8 hours ago
spwa4 8 hours ago
ozgrakkurt 10 hours ago
> AI systems will eventually be good enough (in 10-20 years) for companies to be able to deploy such systems with sufficient accuracy to afford the lawsuits.
This doesn’t sound convincing. What AI and what company?
LLMs don’t seem like they will ever be reliable like that.
Self driving like waymo might be?
jnovek 5 hours ago
MYEUHD 10 hours ago
NicuCalcea 8 hours ago
Who would argue for offering self-driving cars before they're ready and safe? As a cyclist and pedestrian, of course I don't want them in my country if nobody's going to be liable when they run me over. Let them work out the kinks on Americans since they're so eager to be on the cutting edge of progress.
Swizec 12 hours ago
> Until that time, such countries would just not have access to systems before they were bulletproof.
Correct, most jurisdictions do not allow businesses which cannot be held liable for their actions. This is pretty core to a modern society.
Imagine if a company selling Knicks tickets was not expected to then actually provide said tickets and there was simply nothing you could do about it. Oopsies our sales page is for entertainment purposes only
To be fair, the internet has spent some 30 years figuring out how this works and it’s still not fully resolved. For the most part we’ve agreed that companies must follow the laws of both where they live and where they operate. This wasn’t always obvious!
scottyah 12 hours ago
circuit10 8 hours ago
I think they should just have to properly explain how AI tends to make things up when it doesn’t know, and that it’s good for coming up with ideas or suggesting directions for research but that you shouldn’t rely on it, because currently their advertising makes you think you can rely on it
The “AI can make mistakes” kind of disclaimers they hide in the corner don’t really cut it
input_sh 8 hours ago
chias 12 hours ago
Sounds like a win win to me
gblargg 12 hours ago
autoexec 11 hours ago
> But if you hold that position, you also have to be fine with companies not offering products and services in your country.
What sounds like a win to me. I certainly hope my country makes it dangerous for companies to break the law and/or harm the public with shitty products that aren't ready to be released legally/safely.
hypfer 11 hours ago
> But if you hold that position, you also have to be fine with companies not offering products and services in your country.
Well.. I mean.. yeah? I don't think this is as bad as you think it is.
Have you looked at SV and its product offerings recently? It's mostly just enshittified gamified value extraction that doesn't respect the user at all.
"If you do not let us do all this the way we want, we will take away your ability to use our shit" hits different when the "shit" in that sentence is actually just "shit".
ben_w 9 hours ago
lelanthran 6 hours ago
> I think it's a completely reasonable position that companies making self-driving cars and question/answer systems are legally liable for any errors.
Well, for cars anyway, the manufacturer was always liable for the car doing something wrong (example: driver changes the volume on the radio, and that disables the brakes).
It's just that techbros want an exception to this rule if the car is self-driving.
I see no reason for an exception to this rule.
kiicia 10 hours ago
why offer expensive service when it's effectively useless and only add to cost and amount of work? what else they offer, "summarize my text" and "generate custom emoji"? I can live without that...
for now only volvo accepts liability, and only for "slow crawl mode"
buellerbueller 4 hours ago
Perfectly acceptable to me.
Forgeties79 8 hours ago
Plenty of products are legal in some countries and not in others.
intended 11 hours ago
Uh, yeah of course ?
Let someone else sacrifice the safety of their populace.
Heck - self driving is the fastest way to authoritarian government in practice. I’m surprised more people on HN haven’t cottoned on to that fact.
A self driving system will naturally build networks to share road state.
This network will eventually shift over to the government having the ability to manage how traffic should move during emergencies.
And at that point the government can easily decide where your car should go.
The inevitability of this outcome is blindingly obvious.
It’s highly beneficial to let other nations experiment and simply be followers.
bloppe 11 hours ago
Most of the time, human beings driving cars with their own hands and eyeballs are not "liable" for their errors (unless they can be proven negligent or drunk), unless you count their insurance going up. Most car accidents do not end with anybody getting arrested, or sued, or anything like that. Insurance pays out, premiums go up, case closed.
If Waymo can be proven negligent or something, then sure, bleed em dry. But as long as they're acting in good faith and significantly reducing overall road fatalities per mile driven, I think it's actually pretty unreasonable to try to hold them to such a high standard you end up subjecting society to more of the higher fatality rates caused by humans.
jameshart 11 hours ago
elil17 9 hours ago
> But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.
That would be a boon for Germany in my book. If you wanted AI results you could go use an AI.
dbdr 8 hours ago
Agreed. The problem is that people are used to do search, which returns hits from clearly identified sources. Suddenly, Gemini is interpreting your query and generating its own response. It's an entirely different product. If I expect to find a source, this was just wasted inference. It's especially problematic that the LLM result is the top result, since we all know how much that matters.
It's fine to have Gemini as an option, it's also fine to have a combined result page, that should just be something people are able to chose if they want that (even persistently if they want). It should just not be the default.
input_sh 8 hours ago
That's something that would make me always VPN into Germany for sure.
When I search, I want to see search results. When I ask AI, I want to ask AI. Combining the two into one is a disaster.
JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago
> Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger
Mercedes-Benz does this in limited cases. Waymo does it generally. (In China, Level 4 and 5 transfers risk to the manufacturer. This is the correct way to do it.)
michaellee8 12 hours ago
That's not exactly the case in China, the current state of FSD is still pretty dumb, unless you consider transferring control back to the user at the very last minute before it crashes a proper way to handle risks.
JumpCrisscross 7 hours ago
ImPostingOnHN 12 hours ago
sva_ 13 hours ago
It doesn't "bury [it] deep in their TOS", it says right under the box:
> AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses
quentindanjou 42 minutes ago
Imagine going to a restaurant and when you pass your order "passing an order means accepting that there might be some poison in the food so double check before eating, good luck!"
happymellon 13 hours ago
They decided to hijack search and rewrite other peoples websites as their own.
If they want to claim ownership, then they will have to accept responsibility.
Rekindle8090 13 hours ago
ryukoposting 3 hours ago
Well then you're going to be waiting a long, long time for AGI, friend. None of these companies have any incentive to ever remove that line, even if their chatbots are perfectly accurate over a large sample size. It's pure CYA. Unless it can be proven that the chatbot will always be perfectly accurate (which is not possible), the "entertainment purposes only" line will remain.
wisty 14 hours ago
Banning all technology because someone might misuse it is an illogical extreme.
As far as I can tell the ruling is more nuanced. If AI is defaming you, there needs to be a way to correct the record.
A company being open to liability does not mean it is always liable, just that it can be if it really messes up (especially if there are aggravating circumstances, e.g. you need to drag them to court to issue a correction).
ndsipa_pomu 6 hours ago
However, banning a technology because it produces dangerous misinformation (e.g. showing inaccurate and dangerous results for a liver function test) sounds like a completely sane thing to do.
beezlewax 13 hours ago
Ai results that nobody wanted in the first place?
phorkyas82 10 hours ago
That'd be so great. No more cursing if I forgot the "-ai" or "-ki" flag in my search and see this odious AI overview processing window rendering slowly and taking up the space where my search results should be.
Dylan16807 14 hours ago
Why would that mean AGI? You can get into liability-accepting territory by restricting scope, a lot easier than by making your AI smarter.
Self-driving cars don't need to be particularly good for companies to make models where they accept liability in some circumstances, and the cars refuse to drive in other circumstances.
wombatpm 13 hours ago
Wasn’t Tesla found to have FSD disengaging just before a crash so that the driver would be at fault?
Dylan16807 13 hours ago
aleph_minus_one 10 hours ago
> The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS.
I don't think so. It is easy to imagine the following (currently only fictional) scenario: the AGI does give perfectly correct answers (in a suitable sense), but some people in power consider these answers to be too dangerous, so they sue the company behind the AGI on terms of liability (i.e. the company is liable if the AGI gives answers that those in power don't like and which these people consider to be too dangerous for the public to know).
3form 9 hours ago
This doesn't disagree with the poster above: they're saying that taking liability is a sign of belief in AGI. You're saying that lack of liability doesn't mean there's no AGI. Logically these two are not exclusive. p => q doesn't mean q => p.
majewsky 9 hours ago
If the system cannot adjust its answers to the role it's currently serving, then it would evidently be significantly less intelligent than a human.
aleph_minus_one 9 hours ago
themafia 12 hours ago
> But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.
Time to set my VPN location to Germany. I'm tired of the "udm" trick.
bmacho 11 hours ago
cwnyth 12 hours ago
Yeah, I fail to see a down side to this. Those overviews are less than worthless to me.
pojntfx 13 hours ago
> But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.
Oh no! Anyway ...
throwaway27448 14 hours ago
> The true mark of AGI
Can we just trash this as a marketing term? If/when AGI arrives there will be no point quibbling over competency. What we are looking at is just bad search results
ben_w 8 hours ago
"No quibble" is more a mark of ASI than AGI; while both are easily coopted as marketing terms[0], "smarter than all humans" is harder to dispute than "general intelligence" (can do some graduate level work, can't drive well enough to render steering wheels obsolete, is it general?)
[0] e.g. Zuckerberg: https://www.meta.com/superintelligence/
cyanydeez 4 hours ago
you mean GAINS google search results, init
jqpabc123 9 hours ago
But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.
But watch as Germany doesn't really mind losing blatant fabrication that mainly benefits Google.
Vendors keep ignoring the obvious --- that AI is a liability issue waiting to happen as evidence of it just keeps coming.
Otherwise would involve a fundamental overhaul of legal precedent to make lying acceptable.
SilverElfin 13 hours ago
Why is it good? Everyone with common sense knows AI can be wrong. And it’s not buried in their TOS. It’s in the chat box. But even if it wasn’t, it’s ridiculous to create liability for AI chatbots.
jqpabc123 4 hours ago
it’s ridiculous to create liability for AI chatbots.
Liability isn't being *created* here, it has existed legally for a very long time.
False information can cause real harm --- and the legal burden of proof is on the source.
Search engines were provided legal exemption on the basis that they were simply quoting/referencing 3rd party sources who where legally liable for the content.
LLM chatbots legally exceed these bounds by fabricating info/content on their own ---data that does not exist elsewhere. This is a liability issue waiting to happen as there is no other responsible party/source to blame.
WarmWash 3 hours ago
ndsipa_pomu 6 hours ago
Common sense is so rare it might as well be a super power.
e.g. The failed marketing of A&W's third-pounder burger as so many people (in the USA) didn't believe that it was bigger than a quarter-pounder.
MichaelZuo 14 hours ago
Nearly the entire American tech industry has been super heavily selected for people who undervalue the legal language with crazy implications buried everywhere.
Otherwise most of it would not even exist.
Everyone would have continued paying out the nose to the IBM’s of the world year after year (who had unusual willingness to sign short ambiguously worded custom contracts to their own disadvantage, if paid vast amounts of money).
And be on mainframes to this very day… maybe Y combinator and HN wouldnt even exist in that world.
eqvinox 13 hours ago
> Nearly the entire American tech industry has been super heavily selected for people who undervalue the legal language with crazy implications buried everywhere.
A lot of people in IT seem to think law and contracts are in a sense mathematical. They aren't; they're more like a high school book report - to be interpreted, as objectively as possible, but definitely also establishing the intent behind the letters.
Particularly contracts - no, you can't trick your way into things in most cases. "Surprising" clauses are invalid in most legal systems, in particular if one party to the contract is a layperson.
Terr_ 8 hours ago
MichaelZuo 7 hours ago
TalkingCodeMonk 13 hours ago
That is a false dichotomy. The solution to failed laws and regulations is not crime and corruption. The solution is to hold the policial and business leadership accountable; to fix the laws and regulations.
The entire American tech industry has exported Americas predatory, parasitic, and unethical consumer laws (the majority of which are ghost written by the wealthy and corporate legal teams). When I studied law in school decades ago, tactics like bait-and-switch, false advertisting, intentionally misleading or deceptive practices etc to sell products or contracts were illegal across the developed world.
Those illegal, anti-consumer tactics were the SOP of every tech startup I can think of from the early 2000's onwards; following the same route of initially offering a compelling feature set to attract and entice users – usually for free – until securing a certain number of users or funding, then changing the value proposition to exploit that user base, and extract as much wealth from them as possible, ad infinitum.
Today these tactics are known as enshittification, and the average American pseudo-libertarian software engineer will say this is fine, but that's what every anti-consumer parasite and criminal has said in history. Lying, misleading, and exploiting people for financial gain is fundamentally immoral, corrupt, and sociopathic, therefore it should be illegal. Just because it's the norm, or a digital product, you wrote that in the T&C's, or your doing everything behind the liability shield of an LLC, doesn't change that.
What ever happened to the concept of building a valuable, quality product and stable returns for generations? Working to improve the quality of life and standard of living of the community? Of the world? I feel like a 1950's traditional conservative when I suggest that, but most Americans are so heavily indoctrinated with corporate greed and sociopathy they'd consider that sentiment radical leftist extremism. I'm an athiest, but ya'll need jesus (the real brown socialist one). Many would argue Americas current institutional collapse is the natural result of this systemic corruption.
ElProlactin 12 hours ago
heathrow83829 13 hours ago
at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth. what if there's a 1/1000 chance of some error, then the company could be sued millions of times per day.
down vote all you want, but I firmly believe this is an example where the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills. google would be right to remove all AI results from germany.
pdpi 12 hours ago
If I post “heathrow83829 is a convicted poopoo head” (replace with your favourite crime) as if it were a factual claim, you’d be well within your rights to sue me for defamation even if people should apply some critical thinking skills and say “wait a minute, how would pdpi know that? Are you sure he isn’t just talking out of his arse?”
Now, search engines are usually afforded some amount of protection against defamation claims — they’re not held liable for simply indexing and quoting third party defamatory claims. Which is to say: Google wouldn’t be liable for claiming you’re a poopoo head if this comment shows up in search results.
The point of this ruling is that AI-generated text isn’t a quote from a third party, it’s text generated by Google’s own tools, so it’s speech by Google itself. It might be wrong, sure, but it’s still presented as a statement of fact.
At trial they can have the whole debate about whether Google was negligent in how they build their systems, and all that jazz, but let’s be clear here — it’s not a matter of every little factual mistake getting Google sued (and that would be absolutely terrifying from a freedom of speech perspective), but rather that the technical means by which you generate content doesn’t change your liability in publishing that content.
hunterpayne 9 hours ago
michaellee8 12 hours ago
thfuran 12 hours ago
You’re seriously arguing that Google’s libel shouldn’t count as libel because they showed it to too many people? It’s absolutely insane to suggest that a company should be immune from liability for its actions if it operates on such scale that those actions harm millions of people every day on the basis that dealing with that many lawsuits would be too inconvenient.
drstewart 11 hours ago
8note 12 hours ago
em-bee 13 hours ago
the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills
how?
errors can be so subtle that it is not possible to recognize them unless you spend an hour researching every fact presented. at that point, what's the benefit of AI? nobody is going to do that.
google would be right to remove all AI results from germany
i'd consider that a win.
SllX 13 hours ago
gmerc 13 hours ago
So scale of harm creates immunity, is that the argument ?
necovek 13 hours ago
drfloyd51 13 hours ago
Swizec 13 hours ago
> at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth
If a Google employee (like a support agent) says a mistruth, the company is liable and you can sue. They can’t just say “hihi oopsies our support agents are useless”
BigTTYGothGF 4 hours ago
> at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth
I, too, agree that google is too large and should be broken up into multiple smaller companies.
thisisit 12 hours ago
Google can be reasonably expected to not push pirated content to top if someone is searching for the “big hit music download” because they might be held liable for helping people with illegal downloads. But they shouldn’t be liable for misleading people? Being sued for billions of dollars by corporations vs millions by common folks is the difference
Gigachad 11 hours ago
account42 9 hours ago
Should google also be allowed to assasinate a couple of people per day due to their scale? If they can't manage liability at their scale they they should scale down.
silversmith 10 hours ago
Hang on, so you are arguing that responsibility for your product is just a phase you grow out of as a company?
morkalork 13 hours ago
How do you feel about the EPA, industrial accidents, oil spills etc? Does scale give every company a free pass for damages?
bulbar 13 hours ago
NegativeK 12 hours ago
Only referencing America, but professional liability for doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc isn't based on perfection. It's based on a reasonable effort.
So Google could, for example, switch from a tiny "this could be wrong!" byline to having the AI be less overconfident every freaking time regardless of whether it's spouting made up crap or actual facts.
The scale doesn't sound like a way out. If your company expects to get away with doing the wrong thing where smaller companies can't, then the solution isn't to continue getting away with it.
kevinxsun 9 hours ago
At the scale that google is at, is the exact the reason they need to be hold accountable for any misconduct because the impact is so big. If google just display third party content only, then yes, users need to use their own judgement. But if google itself generate content instead and put out claims, due to it's scale and reputation, those content needs to be true because most of the people put trust in Google, so any untrue or false information especially defame others, Google is 100% liable, period. You clearly don't have the clear mind or mental capacity to analyze this situation, probably very slow.
globular-toast 11 hours ago
I'm seeing this sentiment more and more these days and it's worrying. Essentially people are starting to believe massive corporations should be able to get away with more than individuals. This is completely backwards considering the enormous impact a corporation can have, but that's what people are starting to think. I've heard people argue that corporations should be able to straight up lie and deceive to protect themselves, which is something you would not accept from a person.
autoexec 11 hours ago
f33d5173 11 hours ago
Pay08 13 hours ago
Then Google can either discontinue their AI or make damn sure it's good.
dabinat 11 hours ago
I don’t know if critical thinking comes into it. If Google tells me “Company X is a terrible company that cheats its customers”, I don’t automatically know that’s false. It could very well be true. If I’ve got to look at the rest of the search results to figure that out anyway, what’s the point of the AI summary?
cik 12 hours ago
The problem with "the user" argument is the spectrum of users. There are different skills, capabilities, and intelligence. Frequently we wave our hands and say exactly this, critical thinking. But, not everyone is capable of that, nor is everyone capable to the same degree.
As a society we decide. Are we embracing all users, are there basic rights and assunptions? Do we only enable some?
As a free (as in cost to end user) system, Germany is arguing that their social compact raises the mininum bar. Frankly, thus might help drive a rush to increased accuracy for AI- tech finds a way. Equally it may hinder - beaurocracy creates barriers.
I'd love to be able to rely on these search results. I see them ad the same prior set of inaccuracies whereby I have to do more research. At least now there's a summary and direct links to the supporting information. But equally, we're primed with the information in the summary.
autoexec 11 hours ago
OtomotO 12 hours ago
So once you get to that scale it suddenly doesn't matter anymore and you can't be held accountable.
But until then, be a good citizen?
What? That's fucking feudalism... Peasants and Lords.
If you're lucky enough, you're born as a Lord. (And maybe don't live during a revolution)
This makes no sense to me at all. If you're small you should get less bureaucracy than if you're bigger.
For e.g. self driving cars there should not be any exemptions. There are people's lives at stake, people who didn't sign up for your shitty service.
lynx97 12 hours ago
> google would be right to remove all AI results from germany.
As others already said, that would be a great outcome, and german citizens would benefit.
It is a search engine. It used to have decent excerpts. It doesn't need hallucinated generative AI summaries. I am about to click the link anyway.
skeptic_ai 9 hours ago
So if I make a script to spam everywhere with 0.1% odds that is fake I can’t be sued? Just because I spam millions of times per day means I shouldn’t be liable for what I do right? But someone saying one time should go to prison. Makes sense /s
keithnz 12 hours ago
The irony of an article that makes a false claim about what Google was found liable for.... and that very few are fact checking it :)
The law they broke was a law protecting personal and business reputation against false statements of fact. Essentially no one can say I might be wrong, check yourself, but X is Y if that claim is essentially defamatory.
This is pretty good, I hope googles approach is to make sure they don't end up making statements of fact like they did and use more appropriate wording like according to X.... with direct disclaimer that they can't verify it. Even better that they look court documents to find any legal ruling and point people to that too.
rendaw 11 hours ago
What does the article say that differs from what you wrote?
khazhoux 9 hours ago
What he wrote is narrower than the headline
csomar 12 hours ago
How much does Germany follow case law? If this could set a precedent, it's worth noting that anyone can generate these AI overview responses and they're wrong like 9 times out of 10 only.
zerobees 11 hours ago
In common with most of Europe, German legal system is not based on case law. It's more firmly rooted in formal laws and regulations and judges are not required to follow precedent.
District5524 8 hours ago
kuerbel 11 hours ago
aitchnyu 7 hours ago
somenameforme 9 hours ago
It seems like this would ostensibly be illegal in most places. The reason e.g. social media sites in the US can post whatever and not be libel is because of section 230, but that only applies to user generated content. It's the reason that e.g. newspapers can be sued for publishing libelous/defamatory/etc content, yet the same author of such can post it on social media and those sites are legally immune. Kind of a weird law - especially given contemporary censorship regimes, but it's easy to understand the motivation.
But if you as a first party are publishing something directly, like Google is here, you're generally liable for what it says.
colinhb 6 hours ago
shevy-java 11 hours ago
Google is breaking numerous things, so even if the article were incorrect, the underlying issue still remains. It is time to dismantle this Evil monopoly completely.
Also I am not entirely certain your statement is correct - which false claim does the article make exactly?
Frieren 13 hours ago
How could anything else make any sense? Platforms are getting used to provide dangerous broken products and get away with it. There should be some limit to it.
Next do Amazon that is selling AI generated foraging books: - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/mushroom-...
When I was a kid it was possible to buy any foraging books from a store and they had a minimum quality. Is that so difficult to achieve? Is profiteering not punished anymore?
TZubiri 10 hours ago
>How could anything else make any sense?
Well, they disclaimed and the user acknowledged
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-QaEB5eXSU Minute 3:00
Ravus 9 hours ago
Disclaimers and user acceptance does not remove liability for slander, particularly against third parties.
In fact, in most EU countries "the user acknowledged" works only for a very small subset of stuff, precisely because our lawmakers know that the strong party in a contract would use that to get away from every legal obligation.
Frieren 7 hours ago
Disclaimer: By reading this comment you accept to transfer all your properties to me, effective immediately.
Anyone can write a disclaimer, that does not make it enforceable.
wat10000 2 hours ago
9dev 8 hours ago
Luckily it doesn't work like this in the EU.
Robotbeat 13 hours ago
Should we hold scientists and journalists liable if they say false things or misrepresent things?
FabCH 12 hours ago
We already do. Libel and fraud are already illegal.
Robotbeat 2 hours ago
…even unintentionally.
novemp 12 hours ago
Yes, obviously.
Robotbeat 2 hours ago
themafia 12 hours ago
If they do so knowingly, and harm is caused, then yes. Are you suggesting we should give them a pass from years of acquired jurisprudence simply because they hold a particular title?
And what institution gives out the licenses for journalists and scientists? Is it revokable?
Robotbeat 2 hours ago
atoav 11 hours ago
You don't?
Robotbeat 2 hours ago
trumpdong 5 hours ago
The danger there is that the government will demand access to a journalists sources. "Leak reports Area 51 has aliens!" "Oh yeah? Prove who told you that or we'll arrest you for lying"
Or selectively. "Vaccines cause autism!" "Okay" "Vaccines don't cause autism!" "Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt or we'll arrest you for lying"
If we can solve these problems, then yes?
gmerc 13 hours ago
Choosing the answer for you rather than leaving it to the user is a tremendous power and the court correctly diagnoses it comes with responsibly to minimize harm to others in society.
Gigachad 11 hours ago
I've also observed that the AI summary on the google search page is incredibly stupid compared to the results in the actual Gemini. The Google search AI is like the dumbest lightest model simply rewording the search results. It will take a random reddit comment, strip it from it's context and present it as absolute fact.
snailmailman 11 hours ago
I’ve seen it directly contradict the citation so many times that i disregard the text and just click the citation or scroll past every single time. Just today i caught it making up the date for an event, and the citation had accurate information when clicked through.
It’s super easy to catch on dates and numbers, but it gets other details wrong all the time too. But so many people won’t be double checking the results.
creshal 5 hours ago
I'm baffled by just how much Google continues to screw up their AI overview. Even duckduckgo manages to provide significantly better results.
creesch 7 hours ago
> compared to the results in the actual Gemini.
Even those results have a lot to be desired, it is just buried deeper in the insanely verbose research report and impressive looking amount of sources you see move past.
I recently have had a close look at the various "deep research" options the big three (Anthropic, OpenAI and Google) offer. None of them are exactly transparent about how they perform searching other than the "research plan" the present upfront the and shitload of sources they show you (which, to be frank, seems to be clever UX/marketing to make it look extra legitimate and impressive). Which is already a worrying sign to me, as you can't audit the process itself properly. But even with the lack of information available on the front-end I can still see enough that worries me. A few examples:
- "Sources" are taken at face value almost no critical look at the validity of the source, the context it is placed in, etc.
- A lot of sources I know are legitimate are rarely included while a lot of listicles, low effort "reviews", etc do make the cut.
- In multiple instances when looking closer at the research plan and the "hints" they show during searching it becomes painfully clear that often enough they start with an answer in mind based on training data and try to validate that rather than actually researching the data itself.
- Subtly different prompts that by all means should still produce the same factual outcome actually provide wildly different results. This one probably relates to the other points.
In addition to all of this, I also am 100% convinced that AI powered search is incredibly expensive[1], more so than traditional search. In my mind this increased cost eventually will need to be paid by someone, which likely is going to be the user. Since the process is non-transparant I am not confident that the results will not end up being polluted by sponsored deals, etc. There is simply no way in my mind that this is going to end up well for us users.
[1] A while ago I have experimented with creating my own deep research flow with the idea that I might be able to do something with local models. To limit costs I used a SearXNG instance for searching, setup playwright for browsing sources. Using an agentic flow with agents making all the various calls and dispatching other agents ended up eating A LOT of tokens. Even when I did switch to a non agentic flow where each step is orchestrated by code calling on LLMs with simple prompts to validate results still ate a metric ton of tokens for the simplest search query. Mind you, this was not even doing actual deep research but only a few simple search queries. Ironically, google models also did seem to have more trouble coming up with good search queries compared to other models.
neuroelectron 13 hours ago
Of course, they know this. The entire point is be able to rewrite people's awareness.
sheiyei 12 hours ago
I want to add my interpretation of the phrasing "rewrite people's awareness" to make it read less tinfoil-hatted:
"rewire brains for AI dependency" (for money and power reasons obvious to everyone).
In contrast to "secretly implant an agenda about non-AI subject N", which is complicated enough that AI companies are still too out of control to be attempting yet.
waysa 7 hours ago
It makes sense to me.
When Google Search is quoting a 3rd-party website that happens to have bad information, that's not on them. Blame shifts to the 3rd-party. This is Google's privilege being a search engine.
When Google operates as an answer machine instead of a search engine, the privelege doesn't apply anymore. There's no 3rd-party to take the blame.
tantalor 5 hours ago
No that's not what's happening here.
> According to the court, the Al mixed up information about other, genuinely sketchy companies with the plaintiffs and drew connections that didn't appear in any of the linked sources.
Implying: if the false claim was found in the sources then it would be protected speech.
There is nothing special about "answer machine" versus "search engine". You are making that part up.
cyanydeez 4 hours ago
You're attacking semantics. the decision is entirely about the reliability and liability./
msiemens 11 hours ago
Link to the ruling (in German, obviously), since the page seems have to been hugged: https://the-decoder.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/26_O_869_2...
benoau 15 hours ago
> In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices.
Guess that's the end of their AI overviews in the EU!
incompatible 15 hours ago
You'd think so, along with other countries that have defamation laws. But there's no indication of any penalty, and Google wasn't even made to pay all the legal fees. Perhaps their business model (if there is any) can cope.
dawnerd 14 hours ago
And lawyers will use this case to build a better defense next time.
CamperBob2 14 hours ago
In sane countries, it's enough for them to post a disclaimer ("This is AI. AI can make mistakes. Check all results.") Which is what they do.
Overregulation, at best, is a good way to guarantee that your country won't have access to interesting and useful features and technologies. At worst, it's a good way to guarantee that the twenty-first century will belong to the US, if not to China.
tadfisher 13 hours ago
oowa 14 hours ago
that would be hela curryketchup nice
donaldjbiden 15 hours ago
It depends if Google feels the profit is worth the risks.
What profit? I don't know either but they enabled this for a reason right?
input_sh 8 hours ago
The reason is to keep you on Google and not have you click away from Google.
This is the third iteration of the same concept, after AMP and Instant Answers, but somehow with even less of a pushback than with the previous ones.
masonwan 26 minutes ago
I guess the same rules also applied to OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon?
kevinxsun 9 hours ago
Regardless the scale, big or small, if you produce and spread untrue information to defame others, you are liable, period. These AI content are purely generated by Google's half baked AI. Not any other third party. So Google is 100% liable here.
If you just display third party content, that's one thing, but if you generate content yourself and those content are false, harmful, that's on you. Google should be shamed to do this kind things recklessly and irresponsibly.
z3t4 8 hours ago
First they had links to other sites. Then they put the information found on other sites on their own site. Then they took the information from other sites, trained a LLM with it, and put it on their own site without even linking to the source.
ggm 13 hours ago
Good. This should be taken as the precedent for all economies: If you promulgate demonstrably false information to somebody's detriment then the owner and operator of the machine has to carry the liability.
I very much hope we don't see attempts to re-write T&C to avoid this liability.
account42 8 hours ago
> I very much hope we don't see attempts to re-write T&C to avoid this liability.
We really should have triple fines or worse for people who try to push the boundaries of the law.
mmmpetrichor 12 hours ago
This makes sense to me. AI is amazing tech, but it's being oversold to naive public, either on the back of hype, or cynically, knowing they can do it with inpunity, (I'm not sure which). HN users have a way better than average grasp of what AI is and we can be skeptical of results, the general public has no clue.
sheiyei 11 hours ago
100% cynically. It's a game of infinite money glitch (also known as "grab as much as you can before it's over") and has been at least since GPT-3.
leodavi 3 hours ago
How does that apply to AI Overview in Search, though? As far as I can tell it's pure spend on every search, which I know adds up even for nano models.
cmiles8 14 hours ago
Companies generally are liable if their product doesn’t perform. No reason AI should be any different.
clear-octopus 14 hours ago
That’s not very typical in software. Especially software you don’t pay for (with money)
NegativeK 12 hours ago
That's apparently already changing in the EU, where software vulnerabilities mean the company is liable for damages. The only way out is to straight up not make any money (not just from direct sales) from the software.
9dev 8 hours ago
ssttoo 12 hours ago
zkmon 9 hours ago
The confusion is due to blurring of distinction between the roles: Tool, Tool user and Tool provider. Traditionally, a human-agent who can have an intent and trigger an action is held liable for the consequences of the actions, not the tool. That human agent can be the tool user or tool provider.
Tool user is liable in the case of misuse unintended purpose of the tool.
Tool provider is liable when the use of the tool, by design, causes unintended effects despite proper use of the tool.
A simple "AI may make mistakes" line under the box will not help while the box contains false information. The specific information (lines or words) should not be provided if that's a mistake of false.
pnt12 7 hours ago
The article shows a really good point: statements must be accountable on their own, and cannot rely on "further research". This makes complete sense: at what point can I libel someone, and then dodge consequences with "if you do your research, you can get the facts"?
Another point from the article: they are not just aggregating content, but generating it. If you generate falsehoods, that are not even stated by your sources, of course you're responsible.
This can have significant impact to AI in Germany and the rest of Europe, but it's good to question it and hold people accountable.
stego-tech 6 hours ago
Common sense ruling to me. AI != Search, because LLMs are producing statements rather than search results the user has to interpret for themselves. It’s the difference between searching a library’s card catalog for a topic, and a piece of software telling you its answer.
The second these things came on the scene and confidently spoke lies at times, I knew this sort of lawsuit would be inevitable. Nice to see Germany got it right.
kevinxsun 14 hours ago
Google generated those content, so Google should be liable to its own product, that's different from the third party links they just simply gathered and displayed, totally different things. If you are a victim too, reply below.
keyle 14 hours ago
I'm surprised this is even a thing. After all, you go to Google not for the truth, but to search Google. Since when is truthiness the "guarantee of service"?
You're not even paying for a google service, search is free... You might be the product, and your data, but you didn't directly pay for a service and they didn't sell you a fake service.
I'm not taking Google's side, this isn't about whether it's right or wrong to rob websites of traffic, this is about AI's returning search metadata.
But I'm surprised that they lost this argument, and the line they took in the first place.
The Internet isn't made of fact checked data, it's crowd sourced. How can anyone be liable?
cortesoft 14 hours ago
That is exactly the point of the ruling, though... they are saying that AI summaries are NOT the same as search. If Google was just returning search results, and then users clicked on a website and read the content there, Google is not responsible for the content.
If instead Google gives you an answer right there on google.com, without going to another site, they ARE responsible for it.
That makes sense to me?
duskwuff 13 hours ago
Not precisely. The issue at hand isn't just that Google displayed the AI summary, but that they authored it, making them responsible for its contents. If the defamatory content had been in a snippet in the search results, they would've been fine, because that clearly has another author who can be held responsible. The AI summary has no other author than Google; therefore, they're responsible for what it says.
(What's the alternative, after all? Having no one responsible for what the AI summary says is clearly untenable.)
foolfoolz 14 hours ago
why? tons of websites push misinformation intentionally. is there a truth requirement anywhere? i don’t get why this is a thing at all
burpingtree 14 hours ago
vor_ 14 hours ago
etchalon 14 hours ago
HWR_14 12 hours ago
msy 14 hours ago
That's the difference between returning search results and interpreting the information and summarising them. If a newspaper says 'so-and-so has been arrested for theft' it's not the same as them summarising to 'so-and-so is a thief', the second is potentially libel. Why should Google be held to a different standard?
why_at 14 hours ago
The title is misleading IMO. It should say "German ruling declares Google liable for libel in AI Overviews"
I was prepared to say the same thing as you but after reading it seems totally fair.
The key difference is that this would be illegal if a human wrote it too.
SXX 14 hours ago
Google itself is more trustworthy from a normal person perspective as they use it a lot.
None of "AI" companies call their apps "Entertainment fun text generator". They are call them serious names, use words like "intrllegence" and "thinking".
So yeah I'd think if any of "AIs" start to recommend to drink some bleach or take a flight from a 10th floor window these companies should be liable.
weird-eye-issue 14 hours ago
I think it's very clear that Google's AI overviews go far beyond just searching Google because they often incorrectly compile sources to come up with an incorrect answer. For example of this look at the comment I made in this thread
dools 12 hours ago
The question is whether Google is publishing false claims or relaying other people’s false claims. The court found it to be the former which makes sense to me.
trollbridge 13 hours ago
I go to Google to search, but get spammed as if I wanted to talk to a chatbot (and a very poor quality chatbot at that).
This is a gigantic own goal for Google. The average person’s impression is that Google AI is much worse than ChatGPT, even though that’s not actually the case. Google is shoving a terrible model in everyone’s faces.
BikDk 14 hours ago
Playing the perception game wins you the perspective price.
sourcegrift 14 hours ago
Nothing is free. Google benefits off you when they show you search page. Either today (ads) or later
why_at 13 hours ago
I agree with the ruling, but this makes me wonder if it will be possible to have any AI agent at all if it's consistently applied.
After all, if I can get ChatGPT or Claude to say something false that should count too, right?
wongarsu 12 hours ago
If it's consistently applied, any AI agent provider has to comply with cease and desist letters that tell the company to make specific false claims
The arguments of the ruling should generally apply even when the AI agent makes false statements it wasn't notified about. But in that case the defendant might have a stronger claim about not being able to reasonably ensure the correctness of all statements, and having taken reasonable measures to ensure correctness. Google couldn't really claim any of that after ignoring cease and desist letters about the false claims
necovek 13 hours ago
Due to costs of running frontier models on every search request, Google simply does not: the failure rate is so high when you are just expecting an objective output.
Imagine a search for your name resulted in an AI summary saying you are involved with child-trafficking because low capability model linked your first name and perhaps a couple articles on supporting children non-profits to it — and then offering that in a convincing sounding summary right at the top!
heisenbit 11 hours ago
And the more you protest the more your name will be associated with child trafficking. Streisand effect multiplied by LLMs being not good in dealing with negative information.
eqvinox 13 hours ago
In normal flow yes, but likely not if you intentionally entrap it to say something wrong.
A disclaimer and couched language will probably fly through. And it's going to matter what expectations an user could reasonably have, too.
Gigachad 11 hours ago
I think it should be relatively possible for an LLM to know when it's talking about something in the risk zone of libel. And when it identifies such a case it links direct to source material rather than trying to fabricate an answer itself. This is much how a journalist works, refusing to make claims that aren't provable.
Someone needs to hold the liability at the end of the day. People are experiencing real harm from false claims LLMs are spitting out.
themafia 12 hours ago
If you give a language model, empowered through an agent, the ability to publish information on your behalf, and it publishes false information which causes either direct or even indirect harm, and you fail to correct it, then yes.. by every conceivable definition already in law.. you are a criminal.
If you knew this was all possible and you did it anyways for personal gain then you are additionally negligent which may add aggravation to your charges.
ninjagoo 6 hours ago
As the begetter of the AI, the German court held Google liable for its AI's doing. Common sense ruling.
The ruling also lessened the free speech rights for AI. This is a big one. In conjunction with holding an operator liable for its AI's doings, that will lead to interesting cases where conduct that would have been previously protected under free speech rights will become a liability. Basically, machine-based cognitive capability becomes a liability when it is customer-facing.
Suppafly 10 hours ago
Their AI overviews are pretty commonly wrong, so this seems like it might hurt them a bit. Guessing they'll just block them in Germany or throw a bunch of disclaimers around the statements.
caputchin 2 hours ago
Finally someone is trying to regulate AI
hashmap 3 hours ago
god i love the eu regulators they're like the only ones even trying to look out for us
tristanj 15 hours ago
Anyone know if this ruling applies to answers generated by AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude?
All three have the ability to perform a web search, then compose a reply based on the search results. Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does. This ruling may make them liable for false answers.
Kina 15 hours ago
> Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does.
No, the article implies the court’s logic is that the AI search results are presented as search results and that’s a big part of why they are liable. It seems like the court (again, according to the article) does not find the disclaimers that Google has slapped on the AI results compelling because again, it chose to represent these as a summary of search results and it is aware of the failure rate.
> The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements."
> Google built the AI, Google offered it to users, so Google owns what it produces, "because it alone has influence over the AI's offering and the algorithms with which the AI operates."
Google does not, as a general rule, control the actual content of search results, but usually there’s a distinction between the ranking and presentation of the results vs. the actual content. In this case, the court is basically saying, “You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway. No, you don’t get to claim the equivalent of a US safe harbor defense.”
sandeepkd 14 hours ago
> You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway
There is a subtle difference in stating it as a search summary compared to an opinionated answer. Most users are always going to treat it as a response from google instead of search results where the user is still responsible for understanding and come up with their own interpretation.
This is probably the right step in some sense to make one liable for their statements/assertions.
incompatible 15 hours ago
Apparently, if they were search results, they wouldn't have been liable, since there's an exception to defamation laws. Without any exception, defamation is defamation, it doesn't matter how it's presented.
Kina 15 hours ago
asdfaoeu 13 hours ago
asdfaoeu 13 hours ago
This ruling was about search clearly, however, there's definitely ways implications for chatbots too.
sfifs 6 hours ago
Pretty sure this ruling will be used as a precedent in cases against the other providers really soon. As I understand it, there is a legal cottage industry that brings digital related cases (eg. Copyright) in Germany.
layer8 9 hours ago
If an AI chatbot would consistently defame a particular company, I’m pretty sure they would be liable too.
incompatible 15 hours ago
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.
kevinxsun 14 hours ago
Google generated those content, so Google should be liable to its own product, that's different from the third party links they just simply gathered and displayed, totally different things. I wonder how many victims are there now.
hanwenn 12 hours ago
Curiously, if you look for "geramond verlag betrugsmasche", or "verlagshaus24 betrugsmasche", it will now tell you that
there are no indications it is a scam, but "significant organizational problems and extremely bad customer support lead to (list of bad experiences)".
Also, each purported fact now has a direct link to the source of the fact, that is more clearly visible than the previous chain icon.josefx 9 hours ago
The result I get has an entire section dedicated to scammers using the company name. The only links in that section go to a wikipedia page that doesn't mention any scams and a police help page that doesn't mention the company.
jolmg 11 hours ago
Do the links actually support the statements? When I've followed such links, it's generally been a roll of the dice on whether they do support the AI's statements.
hanwenn 11 hours ago
Yes. The links are to isolated threads on a rail (model) forums (apparently, this publisher markets books/magazines related to railway models).
It's hard to see if the individual complaints really support a general problem, or if this simply the only result that talks about "scam + business-name". Probably, the latter.
The same problem happens on google search, if you look "<obscure false fact>", you'll get pages mentioning that false fact. If you fall into the trap of confirmation bias, it leads you to think the false fact is in true.
jjcm 13 hours ago
What constitutes a correct answer though?
Is something like,
"People online say that x y and z because a b c"
a credible, correct answer, even if it isn't because of a/b/c?
wongarsu 13 hours ago
If people do say that, it's a true statement and thus fine. You are allowed to report that regardless of the truth of x/y/z/a/b/c
The instance of this ruling people apparently did not actually say any of the offending claims. 'The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements."'
lithos 13 hours ago
One that doesn't maim/injure/kill you is a pretty good standard. And before you call bs, look at all the foraging and chemistry books that are for sale on Amazon that are AI.
jayGlow 13 hours ago
why are those ai chemistry books any different than the anarchist cookbook which can also be bought on Amazon? actually now that I think about it a faulty chemistry book might be less dangerous than a book that teachers readers how to make explosives.
lithos 3 hours ago
psychoslave 13 hours ago
Certainly, if this is pointing to the actual pages where the actual people express these things. Otherwise that's equally unfalsifiable claims, could be completely made up or actual truth.
One way to formulate things that would be less would be "once support a time, in some fabulated world, it's not impossible that some imaginary character would say something following some reason." But then, of course this is not aligning the the deception scheme pushed by companies putting in their interface that the "machine is thinking hard for you".
_ink_ 9 hours ago
I don't fully understand it. Are they liable for content made up by their AI? Or are they now liable for content written by others and summed up (correctly) by their AI?
lolc 7 hours ago
From my reading the German court's ruling is that Google are responsible both for claims they made up and claims they rephrase from somewhere else. Because the claims appear as a statement of fact made by Google. If they showed it as "User X on site Y claims Z" they would not be held responsible. Because that's how search engines are understood to work. If they make a wrong quote, they would be responsible for that though.
So my understanding is their unreliable AI summaries are a legal liability for Google in Germany and people can request corrections through the courts.
nonethewiser 2 hours ago
And doesnt this imply they arent ripping off the underlying information?
sinuhe69 13 hours ago
Oh, I just found out that my Google search doesn't show AI summary anymore! I tried many search queries which typically will show an AI summary, but it only flicked on briefly then disappear entirely. Obviously, Google has reacted quickly on this ruling!
heisenbit 11 hours ago
I just tried Google search in Germany on my iPhone: AI results AND the disclaimer was behind a „show more“ button i.e. the may not be any disclaimer (and when shown it was in a small font).
weird-eye-issue 14 hours ago
I have a business where our support email is recommended when people are searching for how to cancel a completely unrelated scam subscription that is showing up on their bank or credit card charges. We get emails almost daily from confused people.
missedthecue 13 hours ago
If companies can be held liable (in spite of very visible disclaimers, ToS, and usage policies) for the output of non-deterministic software, isn't this just a soft ban on the deployment of non-deterministic software?
Frieren 13 hours ago
> (in spite of very visible disclaimers, ToS, and usage policies)
If you sell food, in a food stall, labeled as food and you add a disclaimer that it is toxic and will make you sick. You are still selling toxic food and you are liable for it.
Google is pretending to give answers to your questions. They offer you a service about answering questions. And then they add a disclaimer "we do not answer questions just write bullshit". That is still fraud and Google should be liable for it.
> isn't this just a soft ban on the deployment of non-deterministic software?
Tetris is non-deterministic and it is not banned like millions of other programs. I do not follow you.
daemin 12 hours ago
To add to this, a Google search now is answering your question in an incorrect way rather than merely bringing you to a site with incorrect information on it.
They are also no longer covered by safe harbour provisions because it is them answering it, not some content they refer you to.
layer8 9 hours ago
If Google’s AI overviews used a deterministic LLM the ruling would hold just the same. This has nothing to do with non-determinism.
If your software deterministically produces incorrect output for some inputs, you’re liable the same as if it did it non-deterministically.
kevinxsun 8 hours ago
If you read those AI overview, it is not non-deterministic, it is conclusions, claims, statements.
eesmith 13 hours ago
Where did it say the liability only applied to non-deterministic software?
em-bee 13 hours ago
no, just a ban on using non-deterministic software for situations where deterministic responses are expected.
Robotbeat 12 hours ago
Deterministic responses are not expected from something clearly labeled able to make mistakes.
em-bee 12 hours ago
moi2388 12 hours ago
LLMs are deterministic, they are only non-deterministic when you add a temperature.
MrBuddyCasino 13 hours ago
What to do if the software automatically and wrongly libels you on a public search engine?
Honestly I can understand the ruling, but the side effects might be severe.
observationist 3 hours ago
This silly game where the EU invents its own rules and tries to impose them globally must stop. Their business is not needed, and the collateral damage with regards to censorship, manipulation, and erosion of fundamental liberties far outpaces any value their continued participation in e-commerce might bring. This sort of paternalistic and insidious bureaucratic encroachment into every aspect of life is completely antithetical to everything the internet should be. We don't owe them anything, and pretending they (and the UK) have some sort of standing in determination of how the world works simply accelerates the degradation.
The solution is simple. Block the EU from accessing any of your services. They can make their own search and social media and digital marketing and AI.
Good luck to them. VPNs will boom.
I can understand the UK struggling with their imperialistic traditions and so on, but you'd think Germans at least would have some humility in trying to project their global ideas and ambitions on the world at this point.
wat10000 2 hours ago
How is this an example of trying to impose rules globally? Google is operating in Germany. Their German operations have to follow German laws. That's how every country operates.
ElijahLynn 2 hours ago
Good.
nonethewiser 2 hours ago
Doesn't this imply AI constitutes an original work?
PeterStuer 8 hours ago
So will Google just have to add 'allegedly' to any reply?
cm2187 14 hours ago
Doesn't libel require to be deliberate? Ie you can't sue for libel if the author admits a mistake and corrects it?
bmandale 13 hours ago
It requires the claim to be made with "willful disregard for the truth". Notifying someone, especially with a cease-and-desist on fancy letterhead, makes it legally clear that they know better, and thereafter would be definitely libelling you (assuming the claims are in fact untrue and harmful). But you can still sue them for the claim prior to the notice, you just have to prove they should have known better prior to making the claim.
asdfaoeu 14 hours ago
In this case it looks like they were notified and didn't do anything.
razorbeamz 14 hours ago
That's just America.
streetfighter64 9 hours ago
Libel/defamation laws vary wildly across different countries. Sometimes true statements can be considered defamation, sometimes not. The same goes for intent.
nullbio 11 hours ago
Maybe Google's models will start to suck less as a result. Excellent.
ApolloFortyNine 12 hours ago
Unless the courts here made the ruling incredibly narrow somehow (only referencing search engines maybe?), how does this not just ban AI in Germany overnight?
Every AI model can make something up sometimes. Over millions of daily calls, it's essentially impossible for the technology to be guaranteed correct 100% of the time.
kevinxsun 9 hours ago
We are actually a victim too, in the same situation as these two publishers. Google's AI makes up false accusations in search result AI overview about our business. We have sent countless feedback to Google in the past 4 months, contacted their legal team 3 times, all got ignored. Google's AI just pukes untrue, misinformation about us, every time the page is refreshed, AI just makes up new accusations and false information, links us to bad actors baselessly, if you refresh the page 10 times, there are 10 different versions, seriously damaged our revenue and reputation. We have filled complaint with the state AG's office, FTC and DOJ. If anyone in legal can help us, please reach out. Thanks. [email protected]
z3t4 8 hours ago
And people even here on HN actually thinks that AI/LLM are factually correct... The more cases like this the easier it will get to sue them (IANAL)
trumpdong 5 hours ago
Why should Google do anything unless not doing anything costs them money? Record the behavior, then contact a lawyer.
classified 3 hours ago
That reminds me of the guy who was declared dead by Google and then miraculously wrote a blog post mentioning that rumors of his death were premature. Google (and others) really should be held liable for the fake news they're spreading.
sheepscreek 5 hours ago
This is actually a good thing. Google's official mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Now if that information is BS and cannot be relied upon, that’s really bad. Leading people on and not delivering? Honestly, Google themselves should have been on it and not the German government. It’s a bad look for them.
Aside: I’ve noticed their AI mode is pretty pathetic for troubleshooting something. 50% of the times the first response is riddled with inaccuracies and mistakes. Repeat prompting is absolutely necessary (so do not expect to one shot anything).
Also I will admit that I still find myself using it because I’m lazy, and it’s easier to talk to AI to get the right answer. Searching organically is hard these days with the volume of content having gone up exponentially.
feverzsj 13 hours ago
Just ban AI in search engine.
tjpnz 14 hours ago
Does this extend to ads displayed in search results? Because they absolutely should be liable for the scams they advertise also.
JumpCrisscross 14 hours ago
> Does this extend to ads displayed in search results?
Probably not, for the same reason search results aren't an issue.
tjpnz 12 hours ago
Search engines have that exemption for results because they don't control the content of the sites they index. That's not the same for ads - Google can and should have more stringent review and KYC processes - but it seems they choose not to.
UltraSane 8 hours ago
The original Google search that used inverted indexes and page rank and respected boolean operators was very good and let you actually find obscure information. Call this Google Search 1.0
Then in order to increase revenue Google dumbed down search very badly and made it very hard to find obscure information. Whoever decided to delete random search terms is someone I want to punch in the face really hard. Call this Google Search 2.0
But the way Google has integrated Gemini Flash into search is actually pretty good and is definitely an improvement over Google Search 2.0
cush 8 hours ago
Poetic.
streetfighter64 9 hours ago
Not exactly false answers. As far as I gather this is the same issue that prevents customers from making negative reviews about businesses. The business can just threaten a defamation suit and then the platform (Google Maps, Trustpilot, etc.) are pretty much required to remove the review [0].
So the only thing happening here is they consider Google to be the author of the AI answers and apply a similar sort of anti-defamation law. Perhaps it's a good consequence but the law that allows for this seems to be quite broken.
[0] https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/google-reviews-removal-defa...
shevy-java 11 hours ago
Excellent. Even more so with the hostile orange man - Europeans really need to get going.
simianwords 11 hours ago
Overviews is not a good product idea and I think it was done for other deeper reasons. AI shouldn’t be pushed on people because AI can be high variance — it takes time to get adapted to this.
l23k4 11 hours ago
Wow, you guys really think this is good?
Because of the same rules, German restaurants also get to pick and choose which reviews stay up. They can literally take down any specific reviews they like.
A restaurant that mostly gets 1 star reviews will still show up with 5 stars on Google maps, as they will simply delete the reviews with less than 5 stars as defamatory.
Here's a couple of examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1peujau/google_rev...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/18z4shs/legal_thre...
https://www.reddit.com/r/frankfurt/comments/1lox7ha/bad_revi...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1iiaco8/restaurant...
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskGermany/comments/1ha7sxf/why_do_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/1t613w7/it_was_fin...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1l98608/threatenin...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1sw34jc/can_you_ge...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1sw34jc/can_you_ge...
https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/10kmn66/writing_an...
tl;dr Germans are particularly bad at coming up with reasonable rules to handle these situations
sham1 11 hours ago
And the solution to this is to go through the German political system. The courts can't just decide to not follow the law just because it's a bit silly, and for as long as the laws are the way they are, this unfortunate loophole for removing negative reviews will continue to exist. But clearly the law can have both positive and negative consequences.
l23k4 10 hours ago
> But clearly the law can have both positive and negative consequences.
Broad defamation laws always have overwhelmingly negative consequences.
Phelinofist 11 hours ago
But it also shows the number of removed reviews (in a range like 0-50, 50-100 and so forth). If you encounter a restaurant with 5 starts but a lot of removed reviews you know whats up.
l23k4 10 hours ago
That's a fairly new workaround that took Google years to come up with.
tehjoker 12 hours ago
Finally, a sensible ruling based in the interests of the public rather than expediency for corporations
Heirlomb 14 hours ago
Some digital matters concern the state and others are private and there should be no sovereignty of the state over private matters.
kg 14 hours ago
Who will adjudicate private disputes between citizens if not the state?
l23k4 11 hours ago
Not all disputes need to be adjudicated. It's undoubtedly a fact that the German concept of "defamation" primarily relates to situations that should never be adjudicated by any third party.
Genuinely, by far the most common situation where claims of defamation arise in Germany is any less than 5 star review left to a business on google maps.
nixass 11 hours ago
jacknews 12 hours ago
We should be teaching people to be cynical of AI answers.
Even if the answers are correct, they could still be biased, incomplete, misleading, and all the other media-literacy things people should be looking out for.
This ruling seems to go the opposite direction; 'I am legally obliged to give correct answers, so I am always right, trust the AI'.
pacman1337 3 hours ago
First comment that makes sense. Of course AI needs to be verified. Of course it gives bs answers. The answer is to educate the public not try to daddy then. I hope AI is completely banned from Germany for their protection since apparently their government doesn't believe its people know how to question AI.
russellbeattie 14 hours ago
I've found a fun and pretty reliable way to get Gemini to output incorrect information: Ask for a chapter by chapter summary of a book.
I first tried it to remind me of what happened in a previous book in a series that I was reading. When I realized it was either misstating plot points or straight up hallucinating, I tried it on a bunch more books to amuse myself.
Older classics are of course more accurate, but for newer or less popular books Gemini won't shy away from giving you a summary culled from misinterpreted Reddit threads and Goodreads reviews. It's like getting a secondhand account from someone who talked to another person who had read the book a long time ago. You get the general gist of it, but with some added flavor.
Even if you upload an entire epub of a book, the results aren't stellar. Rather than a Cliffs Note's quality summary, they're pretty sparse or leave out important bits of information. One chapter summary I got back made a point of describing what one of the characters was wearing, even though it had absolutely zero to do with anything else. Yes, that's technically a "summary", but not quite my tempo.
If Google wants to present summaries of websites in anything more than a very, very superficial description, they're going to have to improve their model's ability to understand context and importance. In theory, a novel is a self-contained bundle of text, so pulling accurate information out of it should be straight forward. A website is naturally going to be way more of a challenge.
All that said, I find the AI summaries from Google/Gemini to be quite useful and a time saver, but I know to always double check something if it's at all important.
FpUser 7 hours ago
Next thing is declare our rulers to be liable for doing things that fuck up people's lives. That'll really wake me up
pembrook 9 hours ago
My feelings about this rest of the scope of liability. From my understanding, Google is now liable if making false claims about a personal/business reputation. I like this idea in theory (key word).
However, I can easily see the slippery slope where in practice this means providing any AI response becomes too risky, and it becomes another money club used to extract wealth from big tech due to the current hysterical anti-AI moral panic.
Which would ultimately kill the ability of the German people to get access to competitive AI models.
I'm sure many anti-tech/anti-civilization doomers on HN will cheer this on. However, in reality it would do nothing to stop Germany falling behind, and continue its economic malaise/low productivity growth and social welfare collapse. When things in Germany get bad, Germans historically have tended to...ummm...cause issues for Europe. I would not take this lightly given the current rise of more polarized political rhetoric and German economy pivoting hard into weapons manufacturing.
sham1 8 hours ago
The slippery slope of being held liable for an AI overview leading to neo-Hitler is certainly a take, and a ridiculous one at that.
It's one thing for an LLM to get things wrong. This case is not that though. And if big tech can't make sure that their models don't libel companies and individuals then good riddance. Whatever diminutive economic advantage one can get from "competitive LLMs" probably isn't worth it anyway, especially with all of the other disadvantages of these "competitive LLMs" compounding on our societies and the planet, as the resource usage of the data centres necessary to run and train them exacerbate the ongoing climate crisis.
pembrook 8 hours ago
You've formed a strawman out of my argument.
My point is Germany further rejecting participation in the the next wave of technology (as they have done for 50 years) is going to NOT improve the trajectory they are currently on...which is bad.
The neo-Hitler and re-militarization thing is already happening. AfD leads in the polls, they're opening talking about remigration of immigrants, Germany now produces more ammunition than any country on earth. AI has nothing to do with it.
And, given I'm speaking to one of the the anti-civilization/anti-tech doomers of HN as predicted, do you think Germany rejecting technology again is going to improve the "climate crisis" or hurt it? How is the de-commissioning of Nuclear working out there?
kevinxsun 8 hours ago
It is not anti-AI, it is anti misusing AI. Clearly you are trying to manipulate the situation here. If your AI is half baked and produce garbages, you should be liable for the damage of those garbages, that applies to any product or service on this planet, not only just AI.If your product or service is defect, that causes harm, you are liable.
pembrook 8 hours ago
I agree with this, in theory.
But to loudly proclaim your love for this idea as most have here seems a bit premature given there are potentially massive downsides to applying legal liability to an AI model, if not done extremely carefully.
I'm just trying to move a bit beyond the emotional first order thinking. You might see this as manipulation if you love just swimming in emotional vibes, but I find this website becoming quite boring lately due to the lack of debate beyond this first-order thinking.
As someone living in Europe, watching a bunch of rich American engineers fanboy European over-regulation which they aren't actually being subjected to, is super cringe. It's the epitome of the principal-agent problem.
maxdo 15 hours ago
Their digital sovereignty
wyager 14 hours ago
EU countries continuing to ensure the conditions for their future economic competitivity
jbxntuehineoh 13 hours ago
mr prime minister, we cannot allow an "automatic libel machine" gap!
dyauspitr 13 hours ago
So stupid. What is this with making perfect the enemy of good. You can never guarantee the output of an LLM does that mean Germany does get to use them?
duskdozer 7 hours ago
No, it means that Google will be held liable for false or libelous information it provides to users by means of generative AI. It's not banned. Of course, if Google decides that its generative AI produces too much false or libelous content, it may choose to stop doing so in Germany, where it will be held liable for damages it causes.
trumpdong 6 hours ago
I guess there is a small benefit to living in a police state!
pacman1337 3 hours ago
Companies should just stop providing AI to police states like Germany. Apparently their citizens believe anything they read.
lgrebe 3 hours ago
So if i were to write a false statement about you that would result in legal consequences for you, im not liable?
pacman1337 3 hours ago
Good point, I didn't consider that.