/Tech12h ago

German court rules Google is directly liable for false statements generated by its AI Overviews search feature

The case stemmed from summaries defaming two German publishers.

37130251636K
Corey Quinn
craig newmark
Danielle Fong 🔆
Gary Marcus#156
Original postDanielle Fong 🔆#1002
Corey Quinn@QuinnyPig

“We built a robot that lies, so obviously we’re gonna stuff it front and center of the website we’ve spent thirty years making a societal source of truth” reaches an unsurprising result.

Techmeme@Techmeme

A German court rules that Google is directly liable for what AI Overviews say after AI Overviews falsely tied two publishers to shady business practices (@maba_xr / The Decoder)

(Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

6:17 AM · Jun 10, 2026 · 3.1K Views
Sentiment

Positive users welcome the German court ruling holding Google liable for false AI Overviews claims as it enforces real accountability, while negative users call the precedent ridiculous and fear it will harm Europe.

Pos
45.0%
Neg
55.0%
13 comments with sentiment.
Cluster Engagement
Posts from X
Most Activity
Most Activity
VIEWS12.4K
craig newmark@craignewmark

This is genuinely big news, major unintended consequences.

Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

🚨Breaking news that could be huge, and enormously bad for GenAI, if other countries make similar decisions.

https://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/

8hViews 12.4KLikes 28Bookmarks 4
BOOKMARKS7LIKES39RETWEETS9REPLIES24
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

If the new German court decision — to hold LLM companies liable for the false claims their LLMs made — become universal, effectively sidelining generative AI until better techniques came along, would you be happy, sad, or indifferent?

6hViews 5.6KLikes 39Bookmarks 7
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

experts on german law: can Google appeal, how soon does the new ruling take effect, etc?

7hViews 5.4KLikes 18Bookmarks 1
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

and yes i realize this is not a scientific survey, of course.

Gary Marcus@GaryMarcus

If the new German court decision — to hold LLM companies liable for the false claims their LLMs made — become universal, effectively sidelining generative AI until better techniques came along, would you be happy, sad, or indifferent?

6hViews 3.4KLikes 8Bookmarks 0
🦆 SchizoDuckie 🦆@SchizoDuckie

@Techmeme @MaBa_XR I don't know if you know but including a link to your freaking website actually draws traffic to it. Now i'm not even gonna bother and find a different source.

10hViews 141Likes 1
Maker Patrick@TheMakerPatrick

@GaryMarcus It just means that Germany will not be a part of the future

6hViews 25
MintBerryCrunch@Mnt_Brry_Crnch

@GaryMarcus Ridiculous precedent to set

6hViews 73Likes 3
the.PM@thePM_001

@GaryMarcus AI companies can easily stay compliant with German law by implementing AEP-based solutions: https://github.com/thePM001/AEP-agent-element-protocol

4hViews 17Likes 3
Kolya Karamazov@KolyaKaramazov

@GaryMarcus Have you tried asking Gemini about this? 😅

4hViews 147Likes 1
Alastair Thomson@FinanceDirCFO

@GaryMarcus You need another category for "absolutely effing delighted"...

That's where you'll find me... 😉

6hViews 30Likes 2
DesignCntrl Inc. / Destrozado@DesignCntrl

@GaryMarcus thats like blaming a writer for unicorn poop not existing like they said in a novel.

6hViews 77
Onc@estemdetornada

@GaryMarcus It will be fun if we are back at when Google Street View was basically missing in Germany, or when YouTube blocked all music videos in Germany (thanks to GEMA)

5hViews 63
davvi2@8aQ6Hen33QCvSpt

@GaryMarcus In any case, stories and narratives are therefore necessary. https://x.com/i/grok/share/9a43c5810be94ef99cbbda29eaa002ce

6hViews 52
Galeria Rodrigo@galeriarodrigo

@GaryMarcus Basically, prescribing another AI winter. Won’t happen in USA. They are…

6hViews 42
The AI Therapist@TheAIShrink

@GaryMarcus Liability didn't kill software. Your calculator shipped under product-liability law. This will force you to label what LLMs actually are. prediction machines, not oracles.

6hViews 31
Dr Rachel Claire Morris, Shadow Secretary of Snark@5By5Creativity

@GaryMarcus I would still want recompense – and an apology to! – all of us whose work was lifted to train AI without consent, compensation, credit, or transparency. Oh, and some jail terms.

1hViews 9Likes 1
Niklas@niklas_ema

@TheMakerPatrick @GaryMarcus Yes, it’s pretty bad. Hope for their and Europes sake to roll this backs

6hViews 7Likes 1
Kyle@wierenga80227

A little sad. I want them to fix hallucinations and false claims, but I'm fine with them up to a certain point. If I use it as a search engine about some topic and 10% is BS that's not that bad. I feel like if I went and googled it normally I'd probably end up with 20% of my knowledge as BS because I misunderstood it or read from a bad site. AI scrapes up a ton of sources and so there's not a huge risk of landing on one bad source and sticking with it like if I were to pick a topic and then read 3 sites about it and be done.

If the false claim was something that ended up seriously injuring or killing someone, then they should be held liable. I read about a kid that took trip advice from some AI and it encouraged them to mix drugs and take way too much. He overdosed and died. Stupid way of using the AI - it should have refused those requests - but even if it didn't, it should still have known better than to suggest an OD amount of drugs.

6hViews 23
Niklas@niklas_ema

@GaryMarcus This kind of rulings and stupid laws and regulations sends Europe to the stoneage. It horrible. We need to fight back.

6hViews 21
Stephen Everson@s_everson

@TheMakerPatrick @GaryMarcus You make it sound as if that’s a bad thing.

4hViews 4Likes 1
Load more posts