by Hfuffzehn
6 subcomments
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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...
- 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.
- 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.
- 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...
by stego-tech
0 subcomment
- 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.
- > 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!
by kevinxsun
1 subcomments
- 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.
- 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.
- Companies generally are liable if their product doesn’t perform. No reason AI should be any different.
by mmmpetrichor
1 subcomments
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- https://hugston.com/news/ban-european-account-pay-billions
https://medium.com/@klaudibregu/google-greedy-gets-karma-8ae...
- god i love the eu regulators they're like the only ones even trying to look out for us
- 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?
- 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!
by weird-eye-issue
0 subcomment
- 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.
- 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.
by missedthecue
7 subcomments
- 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?
- 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?
- 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).
- I guess the same rules also applied to OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon?
- Doesn't libel require to be deliberate? Ie you can't sue for libel if the author admits a mistake and corrects it?
- It's interesting that the "users can check for themselves" defense was attempted, Google search is so awful now that it's nearly impossible to find anything but ads and ads disguised as links. Even watching people try to use it is infuriating.
by ApolloFortyNine
0 subcomment
- 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.
by PeterStuer
0 subcomment
- So will Google just have to add 'allegedly' to any reply?
- Maybe Google's models will start to suck less as a result. Excellent.
- Finally someone is trying to regulate AI
by kevinxsun
2 subcomments
- 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. kevinsuntopdev@gmail.com
- Some digital matters concern the state and others are private and there should be no sovereignty of the state over private matters.
- Just ban AI in search engine.
- Finally, a sensible ruling based in the interests of the public rather than expediency for corporations
- Does this extend to ads displayed in search results? Because they absolutely should be liable for the scams they advertise also.
by sheepscreek
0 subcomment
- 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.
by ElijahLynn
1 subcomments
- Good.
by classified
0 subcomment
- 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.
- 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
- Poetic.
by streetfighter64
0 subcomment
- 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...
by shevy-java
0 subcomment
- Excellent. Even more so with the hostile orange man - Europeans really need to get going.
by simianwords
0 subcomment
- 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.
- 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'.
by russellbeattie
0 subcomment
- 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.
- Next thing is declare our rulers to be liable for doing things that fuck up people's lives. That'll really wake me up
- [flagged]
by zoetaylor00
0 subcomment
- [dead]
- [flagged]
- [flagged]
- 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.
- 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
- Their digital sovereignty
- EU countries continuing to ensure the conditions for their future economic competitivity
by dyauspitr
1 subcomments
- 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?
- I guess there is a small benefit to living in a police state!
by observationist
2 subcomments
- 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.
by pacman1337
1 subcomments
- Companies should just stop providing AI to police states like Germany. Apparently their citizens believe anything they read.
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