EU court backs online ‘right to be forgotten’
Print Edition
PEOPLE should have some say over the results that pop up when they conduct a search of their own name online, Europe’s highest court said yesterday.
In a landmark decision, The Court of Justice of the European Union said Google must listen and sometimes comply when individuals ask the Internet search giant to remove links to newspaper articles or websites containing their personal information.
Campaigners say the ruling effectively backs individual privacy rights over the freedom of information.
In an advisory judgment that will impact on all search engines the court said a search on a person’s name yields a results page that amounts to an individual profile. Under European privacy law, it said people should be able to ask to have links to private information in that “profile” removed.
It is not clear how the court envisions Google and others handling complaints, and Google said it is studying the advisory ruling, which cannot be appealed.
In the ruling, the court said people “may address such a request directly to the operator of the search engine ... which must then duly examine its merits.” The right is not absolute, as search engines must weigh “the legitimate interest of Internet users potentially interested in having access to that information” against the right to privacy and protection of personal data.
When agreement can’t be reached, the Luxembourg-based court said it can be referred to a local judge or regulator.
Debates over the “right to be forgotten” — to have negative information erased after a period of time — have surfaced across the world as tech users struggle to reconcile the forgive-and-forget nature of human relations with the unforgiving permanence of the electronic record.
The idea has generally been well-received in Europe, while many in the US say it is a type of censorship that could allow convicts to delete references to crimes or politicians to airbrush records.
A Google spokesman said the ruling was “disappointing ... for search engines and online publishers in general.”
The referral to the European Court derives from the case of Mario Costeja, a Spaniard who searched his name on Google and found links to a 1998 notice that his property was due to be auctioned because of an unpaid welfare debt.
Costeja argued that the debt had long since been settled but Google refused to remove the links.
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