Google Autocomplete suggests Australian surgeon is 'bankrupt'
Occurred: December 2012
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Australian surgeon Guy Hingston sued Google for defamation over an Autocomplete search prediction that said he was 'bankrupt' and which he reckoned cost him customers.
Hingston was not bankrupt at the time of filing his legal complaint, but he had been declared bankrupt in August 2009 thanks to CoastJet, an aviation company he had invested in, having gone bust.
Even though Hingston's lawyers argued his bankruptcy had been annulled, the surgeon withdrew his action in June 2013 without explanation.
Autocomplete
Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text.
Source: Wikipedia 🔗
System 🤖
Operator: Alphabet/Google
Developer: Alphabet/Google
Country: Australia
Sector: Health
Purpose: Predict search results
Technology: NLP/text analysis; Deep learning; Machine learning
Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Mis/disinformation; Privacy; Legal - defamation/libel
Transparency: Governance; Black box
Legal, regulatory 👩🏼⚖️
Hingston v Google (2012)
Research, advocacy 🧮
Lewis S.C. (2018). Libel by Algorithm? Automated Journalism and the Threat of Legal Liability
Karapapa S., Borghi M. (2015). Search engine liability for autocomplete suggestions: personality, privacy and the power of the algorithm
News, commentary, analysis 🗞️
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121227/09011621498/another-lawsuit-filed-google-autocomplete-defamation.shtml
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/06/18/bankrupt-man-drops-google-autocomplete-legal-action
https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/1579970/australian-doctor-withdraws-lawsuit-against-google/
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lawreport/google-autocorrrect/4735188
Page info
Type: Incident
Published: March 2023