Google Fined in France for Autocomplete Harm

(CN) - A French court fined Google $65,000 because the search engine's autocomplete function prompts the French word for crook when users type the name of a certain company.

Lyonnaise de Garantie, an insurance company, said staffers at Google should have monitored linked words better.

Google had argued that it was not liable since the word, added under Google Suggest, was the result of an automatic algorithm and did not come from human thought.

A Paris court ruled against Google, however, pointing out that the search engine ignored requests to remove the offending word - "escroc," which means crook in French.

In addition to the fine, Google must also remove the term from searches associated with Lyonnaise de Garantie.

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