Italian court warns on Google libellous autocomplete suggestions

Google says it is “disappointed” by the Court of Milan’s decision to uphold a complaint that the search engine giant had failed to block libellous autocomplete suggestions and is reviewing its options, ZDNet UK reports.

An unnamed individual complained because Google’s autocomplete suggestions – which pop up in its search input bar when somebody is looking for intimation –labelled the individual a “conman” and “fraud”, the lead counsel in the case said on his blog.

“Google argued that it could not be held liable because it is a hosting provider, but we showed that this is content produced by them (and by the way, they do filter out certain content, including terms that are known to be used to distribute copyright infringing material), although through automated means,” Carlo Piana has written on his blog.

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