Aachen court orders Google to stop three false AI Mode texts about a doctor

The physician had worked as chief physician and professor of neuroradiology until late June 2026. On August 28, a colleague alerted him that Google's AI Mode was explaining his departure by citing an alleged sexual assault against his secretary. Searches for "suspension," "termination" and "court proceedings" returned detailed, multi-paragraph fabrications, including an invented legal aftermath. The AI had taken events involving a different former university professor and pinned them on him, the Aachen court found from its own records because the criminal case had been brought against someone else.

The physician described the mix-up in detail in late August and asked Google by email to remove the content. Google said in mid-September that it would take no action. A formal legal demand sent the same day also went nowhere. Google confirmed receiving it, but the court said the false AI-generated texts were still live. The court then banned further spread of the three disputed text variants in a decision dated September 24, 2026. Because the claims could seriously damage his professional reputation, it acted on an emergency basis without hearing Google first. Violations carry fines of up to 250,000 euros per violation.

The Munich ruling behind the Aachen decision

In late May, the Munich Regional Court I ruled in a widely watched case that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI-generated search summaries. The court barred Google from spreading false claims about two Munich-based publishers. Google's AI Overviews had tied the publishers to scams, subscription traps and shady business practices, mixing them up with other companies and drawing connections absent from every linked source. The court classified AI Overviews not as mere search results but as Google's own statements, making the company a direct infringer. It reasoned that Google alone has influence over the AI's offering and the algorithms it operates on.

The Munich court also rejected Google's argument that users could check the linked sources themselves. It said the possibility of disproving a statement through further research does not regularly exempt Google from liability. Germany's Federal Court of Justice had given traditional search engines only indirect liability because they merely make third-party content findable, and it warned that a proactive duty to check results would threaten how search engines work. The Munich court found that reasoning does not apply to AI Overviews, which generate independent, new and substantive statements by evaluating and combining content from third-party sites.

The Aachen court relied explicitly on that reasoning. The Munich case concerned AI Overviews, the summaries at the top of search results. The Aachen case concerned AI Mode, Google's conversational search feature. Ars Technica reported that most searches now return an AI Overview at the top and that Google keeps pushing users toward AI Mode. Both courts treated the AI-generated text as Google's own statement rather than a link to third-party content.

Google settled the Munich case without a higher court ruling

Google publicly announced an appeal against the Munich ruling but never carried it through to a decision. The case ended in a settlement, so no higher court weighed in on the Munich reasoning. The Decoder reported that whether money changed hands is unknown and that neither Google nor the affected publisher would comment. The court also declined to weigh in on the broader significance of its own ruling beyond that specific case.

The Aachen court cited the Munich reasoning despite the settlement. Its order is an injunction and is not final. Google can challenge it.