The Minnesota Solar Company is suing Google for defamation, claiming that the tech company “AI Overview” falsely stated that it faced a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Last year, Ellison sued four solar lending companies, accusing Minnesotan of hiding $35 million in fees and inappropriately charging him since 2017.
However, Isanti-based Wolf River Electric was not the defendant in that case.
Wolf River filed a lawsuit against Google in state court in March. On Monday, Google filed the case to be moved to federal court, with the case assigned to Judge Jeffrey Bryan in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
Wolf River is seeking damages of between $110 million and $210 million.
The lawsuit provided examples of business losses, including the March 5 incident. This led to customers raising concerns about Google’s claim that Wolf River was being sued, and ending a $150,000 contract with the company.
“Public members, including potential employees and customers, see honor loss publications made by Google and rely on these false statements of reflux, spread and even defence loss due to Google’s false and unsupported statements,” the complaint states.
AI Summary is a summary of Google’s generative artificial intelligence, often showing prominently in search results, even before or beyond lists. AI answers to search queries written in conversational tones often provide a synthesised summary from multiple sources.
