Okay, Google. Dispatch Those Lawyers to Make This Little Problem Go Away
June 15, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I gave an NFAIS talk more than a decade ago. The subject was a question, “Is Google a publisher of sufficient innovation to be considered an innovator in publishing like Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg. I think I cast Gutenberg’s modern day equivalent as Sergey Binus Laurentius Pagina.
To be honest, no one in the audience gave a rat’s patootie. The Google in 2009 spit out a list of links. The “user” clicked and read the links that seemed to be on point. No one asked about [a] stop word lists, [b] implicit and explicit “editorial” policies, [c] posting explicit dates to show when the site was last indexed, [d] Google’s indexing methods that essentially divided the world of Web pages into bluebirds, canaries, and sparrows or [e] Google’s patent applications and patents about assembling, presenting, and outputting the content of Web pages in ways that satisfied Google’s intent, not the intent of the source data or document.
Frankly I did not care either. I was working on other projects and had no illusions about the information my team and I had gathered about Google’s editorial and creative methods. I think some of the publishers and commercial database producers in the audience fell asleep. That inattention cost some of those folks their jobs, their self-esteeem, and their identity in years following my lecture. I don’t recall anyone throwing a tomato at me, but the sound of the gentle snoring still haunts me.
Well, there may be a chance for NFAIS and commercial publishers to take back come of the intellectual ground lost in the last 17 years. Maybe. Here’s an illustration making Google’s DNA clear: Search and advertising. Other functions like outputting ad reports, AI summaries, and recycled content as Google News are a consequence of these two strands from the clever innovation of Sergey Binus Laurentius Pagina.
Google must output / publish content to make its business model viable. Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
AI does not change the DNA. AI is simply another function enabled by search and advertising. Personalized YouTube lists — That’s an example of the digital Gutenberg output. The use of Google search by a single Web site — Those result pages are an output of the digital Gutenberg at work. Those nifty ad reports — Yep, another example Google publishing information. My argument in 2009 was simple: Without publishing output, Google’s business collapses. Just like a traditional newspaper, output is in its beloved protein structures.
I read “Landmark German Ruling Declares Google’s AI Overviews Are Google’s Own Words and Makes It Liable for False Answers.” I am quite sure than no one in Germany read “Google: The Digital Gutenberg” but I thought I did a good job explaining that Google is indeed a publisher. If the German judicial officials had read the book, more than AI summaries could be found as original output.
The write up says:
A German court has ruled that Google is directly liable for what its AI search overviews say. Previous case law shielding search engine operators from liability doesn’t apply to AI overviews.
My view is that lawyers are aloft. If this Munich decision gets traction, other countries and maybe the EU will extend the concept. The digital Gutenberg could find itself in a pickle barrel it did not plan on entering.
The write up pointed out:
The court also found that the AI overview made claims “that are not even made in the search results.” None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these “the defendant’s own statements.” Google built the AI, Google offered it to users, so Google owns what it produces, “because it alone has influence over the AI’s offering and the algorithms with which the AI operates.”
The Google argued:
…that users could check the linked sources themselves to verify whether the AI summary was correct. Users generally knew “that information generated with AI should not be blindly trusted,” the company claimed. That’s a remarkable statement given the scale at which Google serves AI overviews. It’s also not entirely true, since the connection between sources and generated content isn’t always there. The court rejected this.
But what about free speech and in the US Section 230? The write up sheds some light on these ideas. I quote:
As if the rest wasn’t bad enough for Google, the court also went after free speech protection for AI-generated content. An AI’s opinion is “not the expression of an acquired conviction of the persons expressing it, but the result of an algorithm,” the court wrote. Offering AI-powered research is “above all an expression of Google’s business activities” and “at most a secondary expression of an interest in being able to freely express one’s opinion and beliefs.” When weighing the plaintiffs’ privacy rights against Google’s interests, Google had to take a back seat, especially since the challenged statements were based on untrue facts. The AI had linked the plaintiffs to companies that, according to sworn affidavits, had no connection to them whatsoever.
In my lecture I think I pointed to Google patent application (US2008/0275763). The document said to me, “Hey, dinobaby, pages can be created by Google specifically to present ads and certain content. I counted any Google page with this type of content presentation as published information. I wonder how lawyers from unhappy creators would interpret the injection of the three types of ads plus inserted content if the creator’s content were de-published. That action would be an editorial decision by Google’s “agent” and, in my opinion, constitute an intentional action comparable to an editorial decision.
Several observations are warranted:
- Google’s attorneys will endeavor to appeal and overturn the Munich ruling. That tussle will be interesting to observe.
- Google has operated with polite nods to rules and regulations. Munich might be a turning point if Google’s lawyers fail to prevail.
- Google, as I stated in 2009, is a publishing machine. Its search result pages are published like any other Google system outputs.
Net net: More than two decades have passed since Google became widely available. The Munich decision, like the French judiciary’s arrest of Pavel Durov, may be an important legal action.
Stephen E Arnold, June 15, 2026
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