Chennai: Google found itself at the receiving end of severe criticism over its search results that returned Kannada as the answer to a question on India’s ‘ugliest language’.
With people expressing their indignation over the gaffe and leaders across party lines slamming Google, the tech giant quickly fixed it and apologised to the people saying the search result did not reflect its opinion.
Karnataka Minister for Kannada, Culture and Forest, Aravind Limbavali told reporters that a legal notice will be served to Google for showing such an answer.
According to the image shared widely on social media, the answer to a question, ‘What is the ugliest language in India?’ was Kannada.
“The answer is Kannada spoken by around 40 million people in south India,” according to a screenshot of the search results.
Google later deleted the response that had offended people, saying the search results weren’t always perfect.
“Sometimes, the way content is described on the Internet can yield surprising results to specific queries. We know this is not ideal, but we take swift corrective action when we are made aware of an issue and are continually working to improve our algorithms. Naturally, these are not reflective of the opinions of Google, and we apologize for the misunderstanding and hurting any sentiments,” a Google spokesperson said.