| ▲ | brainwad 3 hours ago |
| It has nothing to do with monopolies. Google was protected from defamation law with search because the page title and snippets were direct quotes from the linked result page. Whereas with AI overviews, the copy is written by a Google-controlled LLM. |
|
| ▲ | Saline9515 an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| It should be noted that defamation law has a very low threshold in Germany, to the point that businesses routinely sue Google Maps users for less-than-5-stars reviews. Google had to change their display of reviews because of this. Three stars review is taken down for "libel": https://support.google.com/maps/thread/367778263/google-maps... HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44734895 Google maps german policy:
https://support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/1699727... Meanwhile, service in Germany is still rather poor (especially if you have children), but at least no one can complain! |
| |
| ▲ | CarlitosHighway 10 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | You cannot get sued for a review just because it's lower than 5 stars. But of course if you write something like "I found a dead cockroach in my pizza", or "I hard that they don't clean the dishes enough" in a review without proof, that's defamation. And it doesn't matter if you give 1 or 5 stars with the review. | | |
| ▲ | camillomiller 5 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I wrote a one star review and posted pictures of a badly burnt pizza served at a restaurant in Berlin.
Google sent me an email telling me they removed that because the restaurant filed a defamation claim |
| |
| ▲ | applfanboysbgon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44734895 This post is written by an LLM, and possibly a complete fabrication. | | |
| ▲ | Saline9515 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | People don't need LLMs to lie, and someone in the comments tells a similar experience. You can also find plenty of similar anecdotes using a search engine of your choice. You can even find many articles from specialized lawyers if you search in German:
https://www.prinz.law/bewertungen/klage-zugestellt-wegen-neg... | |
| ▲ | 3ot an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, I agree about the LLM part. But can confirm from personal experience that businesses threaten to sue based on Google Maps reviews. | | |
| ▲ | CarlitosHighway 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Let them sue then. Unless you lie in your review ("There was a used condom in my burger, 1 star"), nothing will happen. | |
| ▲ | emsign an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Please don't use fabricated anecdotes in replacement for your own anecdotes. That doesn't make your argument more trustworthy but doesthe opposite. |
| |
| ▲ | donaldjbiden 7 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
| |
| ▲ | harvey9 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Here's an article from outside the tech sector, which I am linking to as a corroboration since this is quite surprising for those of us unfamiliar with German law. https://www.thelocal.de/20260504/how-a-google-maps-update-ex... | |
| ▲ | dgellow an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Damn, that makes public facing LLMs a horrible liability | | |
| ▲ | pif an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Which is what thay should be in any sane environments. LLMs can be wonderful tools, but they cannot be trusted. | |
| ▲ | tempfile 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Public-facing LLMs are a horrible liability. |
| |
| ▲ | arrowsmith an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | See also: Germany's leader filing hundreds of criminal complaints against people who insult him on social media: https://rmx.news/article/germany-chancellor-merz-quietly-fil... | | |
|
|
| ▲ | conartist6 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Right. If Google isn't liable for that content nobody is. |
|
| ▲ | Hfuffzehn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, the monopoly is not relevant for the court. It is relevant for Google though, because they want to transfer it to another product. And the court is saying that whatever that new product is, Google is not allowed to mislead the public by pretending it is search. |
| |
| ▲ | fauigerzigerk 24 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure. Is it really just the misleading part that the court takes issue with, i.e portraying Gemini output as a search result? In my view, the ruling could mean that Gemini's output is legally seen as first-person speech by Google regardless of where it is published. |
|
|
| ▲ | Terr_ 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I recall "Large Libel Models" was one of the sobriquets going around. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4546063 |
|
| ▲ | andai an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Making the response consist entirely of direct quotes sounds like a better user experience than what they're doing now. |
