Google successfully sued over autocomplete in Italy

Italian users of Google's search engine will lose the autocomplete function following a court case in the country.

The case hinged around an unnamed Italian man who complained that, when his name was Googled, the autocomplete function generated references to truffatore (con man) and truffa (fraud). He sued for libel and won.

A court in Milan ruled that Google will have to censor the autocomplete results as part of Google Instant, which launched last year. The company has reportedly said that it cannot easily censor results, since they are automatically generated based on popular search terms, and may have to turn off the service in Italy.

"All I have to say is that it is by no means an endorsement to censorship, as notice to the sued company was given well in advance, the allegations of the complainant were fully discussed with them before even considering to go to court, and the request was and is only for a very exceptional set of strings (two)," said Carlo Piana, lead counsel in the litigation, in a blog post. 

"All cases are different, therefore there is no assurance that similar cases would see the same outcome."

Google sought to have the case overturned using the European Union E-Commerce Directive's safe harbour provisions which limit liability for information available online. But the court ruled that Google had generated the content and was thus liable.

06 Apr 2011