The decision comes from a case first reported by Decoder, in which two publishers found that Google’s AI-generated summaries linked them to questionable business practices, scams, and subscription-related fraud in some searches, even though there was no basis for doing so.
According to the report, earlier this year, the affected companies had sent a cease-and-desist letter to the tech giant. Google denied liability, arguing that its automatic summary feature warns users that the information may contain errors and should be independently verified.
The court’s analysis concluded that Google’s AI combined information from other companies flagged for potentially illegal activities with the plaintiffs’ data, generating connections that did not appear in any sources linked to the search engine.
Authorities found that, unlike traditional search engines that simply display lists of links with statements made by third parties, Google’s tools produced “independent, new and significant statements” based on misinterpretations of information available on the Internet.
According to the court, it is not the responsibility of the third party to correct wrong information. Google is the only entity that has the ability to modify the technology underpinning its AI-generated summaries and, therefore, “must be held accountable.” Furthermore, the court found that Google’s line of defense lacked merit, because the challenged summary “contains statements that do not appear in search results at all.
A new (and powerful) interpretation of AI on the web
The court’s interpretation of the role of AI in producing search results could make this case a landmark precedent. It holds a large tech company responsible for the impact of its most advanced developments on widely used platforms.
Until now, in most legal systems, search engines are considered tools that merely facilitate access to content created by third parties and available on the Web. This status provides them with a certain level of protection when the information published is false, inaccurate, misleading or even defamatory.
However, the German court held that this protection no longer applies when search engines incorporate generative AI systems. According to its logic, this technology is capable of producing non-existent claims based on multiple sources and as a result, the companies responsible for operating it must take liability for the resulting content.
The judges also concluded that while Google encourages users to verify information due to the possibility of hallucinations inherent in AI models, this warning does not absolve the content distributor of liability. Otherwise, he argued, victims of false statements would be virtually defenseless, because the original sources never made these statements and, therefore, cannot be subject to legal action.
Similarly, the court held that the results generated by an AI system could not be protected under principles of free speech, because they are the product of algorithms designed, trained, and managed by a company, and not the expression of an individual opinion.
As a precautionary measure to prevent a possible recurrence, the ruling required Google to remove a large portion of the statements deemed defamatory in this case and to cover 80 percent of the legal costs arising from the proceedings.
A company spokesperson quoted by Ars Technica suggested that the decision could be appealed. “We invest deeply in the quality of AI overviews to ensure that the majority of responses provide accurate information, and they are designed to reflect the information that exists on the web,” the statement said. “We are carefully reviewing this decision, which is not yet final.”
<a href