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German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

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Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#391

Post by wasmitnetzen »

drstewart wrote: post #207
thfuran wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly, it's like saying Wikipedia shouldn't be liable and immediately shut down for any wrong information shown on it.

Wikipedia doesn't have to shut down, but they have to remove the libel.

The problem for LLMs is that they do not learn, and can't be prevented to produce that libel ever again. If Google finds a way to make that happen, no court would stop them from offering an LLM.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#392

Post by doubled112 »

breezybottom wrote: post #374
belorn wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds similar to Nintendo dmca takedowns. You could challenge the defamation claim in court and win, but you would have to spend a lot of money and time, and the only thing you get back in the end is the right to post the review.

How is that remotely similar? DMCA is about IP law.

You could challenge the *DCMA* claim in court and win, but you would have to spend a lot of money and time, and the only thing you get back in the end is the right to post the *code to Github*.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#393

Post by y42 »

Saline9515 wrote: post #285
brainwad wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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://new…

the threshold is not low, I would argue, it's just companies like to exploit it.

(I just wrote an extensive analysis about that https://nickyreinert.de/2026/2026-05-28-google-maps-reviews/

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#394

Post by biosboiii »

CarlitosHighway wrote: post #333
Saline9515 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://new…

You cannot get sued for a review just because it's lower than 5 stars. But of course if you write something like "I found a dead cockroach in my pizza", or "I hard that they don't clean the dishes enough" in a review without proof, that's defamation. And it doesn't matter if you give 1 or 5 stars with the review.

There are agencies in Germany where you can buy review removals in a web shop for like 50 euros per review.

You just have to link the review and they will send Google a legal document to delete it.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#395

Post by mystraline »

doubled112 wrote: post #392
breezybottom wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that remotely similar? DMCA is about IP law.

You could challenge the *DCMA* claim in court and win, but you would have to spend a lot of money and time, and the only thing you get back in the end is the right to post the *code to Github*.

The answer is you stay clear of US law jurisdictions and post your code to gitflic.ru

Its where the DRM bypass software lives these days, along with Bypass Paywalls Clean.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#396

Post by sumeno »

watwut wrote: post #268
hunterpayne wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other big point is that some people treat LLMs as if they are truth. We all know that they get a lot wrong, a lot of the time. Yesterday I watch both Elon post something somewhere between badly worded and wrong and another user used Grok to "prove him wrong", but this time being completely wrong in a different way. And this was a matter of law which can be looked up. Anything within throwing distance of politics…

I see people claiming LLM are trustworthy on HN all the time. It is not just some people, it is a lot of people insode the tech itself pushing the "trustworthy" claim.

Yeah, it would take me about 15 minutes to find several examples of people on HN claiming hallucinations are a solved problem

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#397

Post by sheepscreek »

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.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#398

Post by tantalor »

waysa wrote: post #329

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.

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.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#399

Post by creshal »

Gigachad wrote: post #168
gmerc wrote: post #99

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.

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.

I'm baffled by just how much Google continues to screw up their AI overview. Even duckduckgo manages to provide significantly better results.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#400

Post by trumpdong »

Robotbeat wrote: post #108
Frieren wrote: post #81

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 achiev…

Should we hold scientists and journalists liable if they say false things or misrepresent things?

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?

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