Google Prematurely Calls Time Of Death For Orrin Hatch, Sergio Marchionne

Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG is the first place many people go to find the answer to a question. But the search engine isn’t infallible.

After all, as Sen. Orrin Hatch pointed out, he’s still kickin.'

Hatch’s office submitted ample proof of life Monday after discovering that Google falsely listed the politician’s death as Sept. 11, 2017.

Hatch, it appears, has had an active post-mortem career. 

The search engine also mistakenly declared the death of former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV FCAU CEO Sergio Marchionne.

Marchionne is in failing health, and Google aggregators may have been duped by false or prematurely published online obits, but as far as Twitter Inc TWTR can verify, the auto exec did not die on July 23, 2018.

The Hatch and Marchionne errors have been corrected. They are officially Google-alive again. But such timeline reversals have proven difficult for less famous folk.

The presumption of death isn’t that rare of an occurrence. Other minor celebrities have suffered the same “Tom Sawyer” experience, as Google’s Knowledge Graph blends distinct identities with identical names and misattributes biographical information.

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