The Munich Regional Court has issued an interim injunction against Google, ruling that its AI Overviews in search results disseminated false claims regarding two Munich-based publishers. It has been reported that the court designated Google as a direct infringer, determining that AI Overviews are not merely lists of search results but are Google's own content.
German Court Holds Google Directly Liable for Generating False Information in AI Overviews
This article is a translation. Read the Japanese original
It was pointed out that the AI Overviews confused information regarding other suspicious companies with the plaintiff companies, creating associations that were not present in the linked sources. The court stated that because the AI rewrites results and makes judgments "in its own words and structure," its nature differs from that of traditional search engines.
Google explained that AI Overviews are designed to "reflect" information already existing on the web and noted that the decision is not yet final. Google further argued that, as with traditional search results, users are able to delve deeper to verify the information.
However, the court ruled that the legal precedents regarding liability limitations applied to traditional search engines do not apply to AI Overviews. The court pointed out that since AI Overviews generate "independent new substantive claims" by evaluating and combining third-party content, Google is the only entity capable of checking them.
Source: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews（HN 1021pt・552コメント）（HN Search (backfill), 2026-06-10）