Verdict: Publishers can be liable for misleading snippets on Google

Press publishers can be held liable for misleading short texts in search engines such as Google, even if the full article is correct. This was decided by the Regional Court of Cologne in a recently announced ruling from January 22 (case no.: 28 O 252/24). The judges argued that such short summaries of news texts should be treated like headlines on the front page of a newspaper. These should also be easy to understand and correct when displayed in a kiosk, for example, as many readers only notice the headline and do not go into depth: "Many users of internet search engines will not click on all the search results displayed to them and taken note of by them."

The case, reported by lawyer Jörn Claßen from the Cologne media law firm Brost Claßen, involved a snippet for an article on bild.de. In it, "Bild", which belongs to Axel Springer, referred to the results of routine food inspections in two franchise branches of a snack bar chain. The operators were confronted with accusations such as dirt, fake meat and hygiene deficiencies. According to the court, the snippet for the advertisement in search engine results lists was deliberately incomplete in terms of press law, writes Claßen. Readers were not informed that it was a franchise system and that the allegations were only directed at two franchisees.

Google did not change the snippet

In view of the lack of clarification, recipients could get the impression that the grievances applied to all branches, the statement continues. The fact that the article was published in the "Regional" section does not change this. With the expected misinterpretation, the snippet violated the corporate personality rights of the plaintiff franchisor, which was therefore entitled to injunctive relief. The court held the publisher liable for the fact that Google used the meta tag it had created for the article verbatim. The disputed text was therefore directly attributable to the publisher, which led to direct liability. According to Claßen, the situation would have been different if Google had independently changed permissible meta descriptions from content providers and an infringing snippet had been generated in this way. The search engine operator would then be liable as the directly responsible party or interferer.

The design of article summaries is challenged by the ancillary copyright law. The EU Copyright Directive stipulates that only "individual words or very short extracts of a textual contribution" may be displayed as snippets by search engines without the obligation to obtain a license or pay. In Germany, the term "very short text excerpts" is used, after the limit was initially set at just eight words. During the legislative process, Google argued in vain that headlines and snippets of up to 200 characters in length should be excluded from the scope of protection. Publishers' associations wanted "regularly no more than three words" to remain license-free. The court also found that a delay of around three weeks between the publisher's response to a warning and the filing of an application for an injunction could not be considered unjustified. The judgment is not yet final and will probably also be referred to the Higher Regional Court.

(vbr)