A Japanese court has ordered search giant Google to suspend its auto-complete function because it breaches one man's privacy, his lawyer said.
Tokyo District Court approved a petition by the man, who claimed typing his name into the search engine generated a suggestion linking him to crimes he did not commit, lawyer Hiroyuki Tomita told media Sunday.
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The lawyer added that since these postings began appearing on the Internet over the last few years, his client has had difficulty finding work, with his online reputation always in question.
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The details of this case are not known, but it is possible that the plaintiff shares a name with someone who is legitimately associated with a crime.
Tomita said the auto-complete function was problematic because it guides users to sites that may contain false or misleading information.
Google has responded to the man's complaints by saying that since the results are compiled automatically there is no intrusion of privacy
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