Google"s autocomplete feature is very helpful 99.9 percent of the time when you want to search for a particular name or item. One Japanese man, however, discovered that the autocomplete feature was anything but helpful and now a Japanese court has agreed with him.
According to a feature on the Japan Times website, via News.com, the Tokyo District Court has now ordered Google to remove certain terms from its search autocomplete feature. The order comes after the unnamed Japanese man discovered that when typing his name into Google, autocomplete brought up thousands of suggestions that linked this man"s name to criminal acts.
The man said he was unexpectedly fired from his job a few years ago and has been unable to find new work because of this issue. He says that he went to Google to ask them to remove some of the terms from the autcomplete feature but Google refused, saying that since the terms generated alongside his name were created mechanically, there was no intent by Google to attack the man.
Google has now said it is looking over the Japanese court decision but so far it has not commented on if it will abide by its ruling.