Google is now directly liable for false claims in its AI search overviews, as two German courts ruled in separate cases. The Aachen Regional Court barred Google from spreading false statements about a doctor, citing the reasoning from a Munich Regional Court ruling. The court classified AI-generated texts as Google's own statements, making the company responsible for them.
In the Munich case, the court ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI-generated search summaries, which had falsely linked two publishers to fraud schemes.
The judges considered AI Overviews as Google's own statements, not just search results, requiring the company to answer for them. This classification shifts responsibility from a neutral middleman to the company itself.
The Munich ruling was initially challenged by Google, which settled the case instead of pursuing an appeal. The Aachen court then applied the same legal reasoning, citing the Munich ruling and banning further spread of false claims. The Aachen decision emphasized that Google's AI produces independent, new, and substantive statements based on third-party content, requiring the company to verify them.
"The respondent provides AI-generated search and is therefore also responsible for the answers generated in this context," the Aachen court wrote. The court noted that Google could check such statements by comparing AI output against the source websites. If Google had confronted its AI with the doctor's objections, the system would have caught the errors itself.
The rulings raise questions about Google's long-term legal strategy with its AI search features. If courts continue to classify AI answers as original content, it could lead to broader legal implications, including claims from content creators whose texts feed those answers. This could upend the economics of AI search entirely.
Source: thedecoder
