The Decoder reported that the Aachen Regional Court, in a decision dated 24 September 2026, barred Google from spreading three texts in its AI Mode search feature. The texts tied a neuroradiology professor to an alleged sexual assault against his secretary and to court proceedings. AI Mode attributed these to him, but they involved a different former university professor. Google had declined his request to remove them. The court acted urgently, without hearing Google. Each breach could cost up to 250,000 euros.
Google can still challenge the order, which is not final. The court relied on a late-May ruling by the Munich Regional Court I, where AI Overviews falsely linked two Munich publishers to fraud schemes. The Decoder says Google announced an appeal there but settled, so no higher court ruled. The reason, and any payment, are unknown. The Aachen court said the AI merges content from various third-party websites into new statements. It said Google could check answers against those sites, and that feeding the doctor's objections back to the system would have caught the errors.
Two regional courts have now treated generated answers as Google's own statements, not links to other people's pages. Buyers of AI search can ask vendors whether answers are checked against sources, and whether a complaint triggers a recheck.