Google in court after man complains search engine automatically adds crimes after his name

A man is suing Google for the second time over claims that when his name is typed into the search engine the autocomplete function defames him by automatically adding crimes to the search term.

The Japanese man, who cannot be named, is demanding that the offending phrases be removed and that Google pay him compensation for the embarrassment they have caused.

He even believes that the mix-up led to him losing his job several years ago and, following that, his difficulty in finding new employment.

Lawsuit: Google are being sued in Japan by a man who says he has been defamed by the search engine's autocorrect function

In a ruling earlier this year, the Tokyo District Court already ordered that Google stop displaying the phrases after the man's name but the firm refused to comply, claiming it was not bound by Japanese law.

It argued that the autocomplete results were not able to violate privacy because they were automatically generated and merely depended on what was already available online.

Now the man has returned to the same court to demand compensation for the alleged defamation he has suffered, The Register reported.

Google has found itself in hot water before because of unexpected side-effects of its autocomplete feature.

A Milan court ruled against the search engine last year after an Italian man complained that his name was autocompleted with words like 'truffatore' (con man) and truffa (fraud).

In 2010 a Paris court found it liable in a similar case after a plaintiff was associated with terms like 'rapist' and 'satanist'.

In the UK, Max Mosley has asked Google to remove search results linking his name to certain stories about his sex life and the case is ongoing.

Google already censors autocomplete results to omit pornography, violence, expletives and searches that could lead to copyright violations.

Source: digg.com