Google was ordered by the Tokyo District Court to suspend
its autocomplete search function after a man alleged that
it violated his privacy, according to a Kyodo News story
published on the Japan Times website.
The Tokyo District Court approved a petition demanding
that Google suspend its autocomplete search feature for
Internet browsers after a man alleged that it breached
his privacy and got him fired, his lawyer said Sunday.
Google refused to suspend the feature, saying that its
headquarters in the United States would not be regulated
by Japanese law and that the case did not warrant
deleting the autocomplete suggestions related to the
petition under its in-house privacy policy, lawyer
Hiroyuki Tomita said.
The man claims that Google's autocomplete feature likely
played a role when he suddenly lost his job several years
ago and caused several companies to subsequently reject
him when he applied for new jobs. He discovered that when people type his name into
Google's search engine, words suggesting criminal acts,
which he is unfamiliar with, appear.
Before turning to the court last October, the man had
asked Google to delete certain words. Google rejected the
request on the grounds that the suggested words were
being selected automatically.