Two German courts hold Google responsible for false AI search claims

A second German court has held Google responsible for false claims generated by its AI search features. The Aachen Regional Court barred Google from repeating statements about a physician and adopted reasoning from an earlier Munich ruling: AI answers are Google's own statements.

Munich held Google liable for AI Overviews

In late May, Munich Regional Court I ruled that Google was directly liable for AI Overviews that falsely linked two Munich-based publishers to fraud schemes. The judges treated the summaries as Google's statements, rather than references to third-party information.

Google announced an appeal, but the case ended in a settlement before a higher court decided it. The reason for the settlement and whether money changed hands are unknown. Neither Google nor the affected publisher would comment. The Munich court declined to discuss the ruling's wider significance beyond that case.

Aachen barred three AI Mode texts

In a decision dated September 24, 2026, the Aachen Regional Court prohibited Google from spreading three versions of false AI Mode text about a physician. He had worked as a chief physician and professor of neuroradiology from 2010 until late June 2026.

On August 28, a colleague alerted him that AI Mode was attributing his departure to an alleged sexual assault against his secretary. Further searches using terms including “suspension,” “termination,” and “court proceedings” produced detailed false accounts of a legal aftermath. The events involved a different former university professor. The court checked its own records and confirmed that the criminal case concerned someone else.

The physician described the error to Google by email in late August and asked for the content to be removed. Google said in mid-September that it would take no action. It acknowledged a formal legal demand sent that day, but the court said the false texts remained available.

The court issued the injunction urgently, without hearing Google first, because the claims could seriously harm the physician's professional reputation. A violation could bring a fine of up to 250,000 euros. Citing Munich, the Aachen judges said Google was responsible for the answers its AI generated. They said Google could check answers against their source websites and that its AI would have identified the errors if given the physician's objections.

The two decisions indicate how these courts assess responsibility for AI search answers. The classification could also matter to publishers whose material feeds those answers, although neither case decided any publisher claim over AI-generated content. Google can challenge the Aachen injunction, which is not final.