Can an automated Google feature that ostensibly helps users with a search be a basis for libel? Courts in Germany, Italy and Hong Kong have had to field that question. Google’s position is that there is no human intervention, and that its algorithm is based merely on what others have searched for, or strings of words in indexed pages. Autocomplete “predictions are possible search terms, not statements by other people or Google about the terms, and not the answer to a search,” the company claims.
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Google Autocomplete's Brushes With Libel
Posted by: Peter S. Vogel August 25, 2014 09:03 AMCan an automated Google feature that ostensibly helps users with a search be a basis for libel? Courts in Germany, Italy and Hong Kong have had to field that question. Google’s position is that there is no human intervention, and that its algorithm is based merely on what others have searched for, or strings of words in indexed pages. Autocomplete “predictions are possible search terms, not statements by other people or Google about the terms, and not the answer to a search,” the company claims.