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Former German first lady sues Google over 'prostitute' autocomplete suggestions

Former German first lady sues Google over 'prostitute' autocomplete suggestions

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Bettina Wulff, wife of former German president Christian Wulff, has filed a lawsuit against Google in an attempt to remove autocomplete suggestions which she claims are libellous, according to a report from the Südddeutsche Zeitung.

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Bettina Wulff autocomplete results
Bettina Wulff autocomplete results

Bettina Wulff, wife of former German president Christian Wulff, has filed a lawsuit against Google in an attempt to remove autocomplete suggestions which she claims are libellous, according to a report from the Südddeutsche Zeitung. Currently, a search for Wulff's name brings up words including "escort," "prostituierte," and "rotlicht," the latter two being German for "prostitute" and "red light" respectively — the suggestions are the result of persistent rumours about Wulff's life before her marriage, which she denies.

Filed in the Hamburg Regional Court, Wulff's suit is not unprecedented, with similar actions in Europe having proved successful — back in January, Google was fined $65,000 by a French court and forced to remove results linking the Lyonnaise de Garantie bank with the French versions of words such as "con man" and "crook." More drastically, in March, a Japanese court ordered the company to modify the way its autocomplete algorithm functioned in the country, after a man claimed that his name was being linked to crimes that he hadn't committed.