Search engine liability for autocomplete suggestions: personality, privacy and the power of the algorithm

Abstract

This article is concerned with the liability of search engines for algorithmically produced search suggestions, such as through Google's 'autocomplete' function. Liability in this context may arise when automatically generated associations have an offensive or defamatory meaning, or may even induce infringement of intellectual property rights. The increasing number of cases that have been brought before courts all over the world puts forward questions on the conflict of fundamental freedoms of speech and access to information on the one hand, and personality rights of individualsunder a broader right of informational self-determination-on the other. In the light of the recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) in Google Spain v AEPD, this article concludes that many requests for removal of suggestions including private individuals' information will be successful on the basis of EU data protection law, even absent prejudice to the person concerned. K E Y W OR D S : ISP liability; defamation; data protection; trade mark infringement; intellectual property; freedom of speech; false light; right to be forgotten

On the Social and Technical Challenges of Web Search Autosuggestion Moderation

“…The campaign highlighted examples like 'women shouldn't [have rights],' 'women cannot [be trusted],' 'women should [be slaves]' (where the part in square brackets represents a search suggestion that completes the partially typed query preceding it). 2 Similar issues have also been highlighted by legal complaints concerned with suggestions allegedly defaming an individual or an organization (e.g., a suggestion implying the plaintiff is a 'scam' or a 'fraud') or promoting harmful illicit activities (e.g., a suggestion pointing to pirated versions of a plaintiff's content) (Ghatnekar 2013;Cheung 2015;Karapapa and Borghi 2015).…”

Algorithmic power and African indigenous languages: search engine autocomplete and the global multilingual Internet

“…Some researchers have examined how autocomplete can become more precise in its predictions, and better reflect a user's concerns at a point in time (Bar-Yossef and Kraus, 2011). Others have adopted more normative lines of questioning, interrogating the legality of (and liability for) information presented through predictions (Karapapa and Borghi, 2015;Olteanu et al, 2020) or how such predictions -across platforms and timescales -could steer patterns of user inquiry (Robertson et al, 2019). Baker and Potts (2013) demonstrated how autocomplete predictions can reproduce racist, biassed and stereotyped discourses in English-language searches.…”

Themes in data mining, big data, and crime analytics

“…Re-identifying previously de-identified government data are even proposed as a new criminal offense, In this era many data privacy issues emerge, often unplanned, for instance the autocomplete suggestions of search engines with many requests on the basis of EU data protection law for removal of suggestions including private individuals' information (Karapapa & Borghi, 2015). Sensitive user data can be used to derive actionable insights, and it is usually accepted that individuals cannot be identified, data will be aggregated and so on.…”