Maciej Szpunar

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The EU's top court has ruled that Google does not have to apply Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten globally.

to remove links from its search results in Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe - and not Com /person/elsewhere-whois.html'>Elsewhere - Com /person/after-whois.html'>After receiving an appropriate request.

The ruling stems from a dispute between Google and a French privacy regulator.

In 2015, CNIL ordered Com /person/the_firm-whois.html'>The Firm to globally remove search result listings to pages containing damaging or false Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information about a person.

Com /person/the_following-whois.html'>The Following year, Google introduced a geoblocking feature that prevents European users from being able to see delisted links.

But it resisted censoring search results for people in other parts of Com /person/the_world-whois.html'>The World . And Com /person/the_firm-whois.html'>The Firm challenged a 100,000 ($109,901; £88,376) Com /person/euro-whois.html'>Euro fine that CNIL had tried to impose.

"Currently, there is no obligation under Com /person/eu_law-whois.html'>Eu Law , for a search engine operator who grants a request for de-referencing made by a data subject. . to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine," the European Court of Justice ruling said.

What is Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten ?

Also known as the "right to erasure", the rule gives EU citizens Com /person/the_power-whois.html'>The Power to demand data about them be deleted.

In the case of search engines, Europeans have had Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to request links to pages containing sensitive personal Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information about them be removed since 2014.

But Com /person/the_general-whois.html'>The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came into force in 2018, added further obligations.

Members of Com /person/the_public-whois.html'>The Public can make a request to any organisation "verbally or in writing" and the recipient has one month to respond. They then have a whether they are compelled to comply or not.

Google had argued that the obligation could be abused by authoritarian governments trying to cover up Com /person/human_rights-whois.html'>Human Rights abuses were it to be applied outside of Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe .

"Since 2014, we've worked hard to implement Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten in Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe , and to strike a sensible balance between people's rights of access to Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information and privacy," Com /person/the_firm-whois.html'>The Firm said in a statement following the ECJ ruling.

"It's good to see that the court agreed with our arguments. "

The tech firm had been supported by Microsoft, Wikipedia's owner the Com /person/wikimedia_foundation-whois.html'>Wikimedia Foundation , the non-profit Reporters Committee for Freedom of Com /person/the_press-whois.html'>The Press , and the UK freedom of expression campaign group Com /person/article_19-whois.html'>Article 19 , Com /person/among_others-whois.html'>Among Others .

ECJ adviser Com /person/maciej_szpunar-whois.html'>Maciej Szpunar had also concluded that Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten be limited to Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe in a non-binding recommendation to the court earlier this year.

There has been a lot of interest in the case since, had the ruling gone Com /person/the_other-whois.html'>The Other way, it could have been viewed as an attempt by Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe to police a US tech giant beyond the EU's borders.

Those wanting to read the full ruling were frustrated in Com /person/the_hour-whois.html'>The Hour following its release because the ECJ's own website crashed.

A notice on the court's website said it was "unavailable" just before the ruling was due to be published

The court also issued a related second ruling, which said that links do not automatically have to be removed just because they contain Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information about a person's Com /person/sex_life-whois.html'>Sex Life or a criminal conviction.

Instead, it ruled that such listings could be kept where "strictly necessary" for people's freedom of Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information rights to be preserved. However, it indicated a high threshold should be applied and that such results should fall down search result listings over time.

"The obligation to demote search results in some cases is particularly interesting as an example of the courts directly interfering with the algorithms used by big tech companies," commented Peter Church from Com /person/the_law-whois.html'>The Law firm Linklaters.

Geoblocked results

Google has applied Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten since May 2014, when the ECJ first determined that under some circumstances European citizens could force search firms to delist webpages containing sensitive Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information about them from queries made using their names.

The idea is to hide sensitive Com /person/information-whois.html'>Information - such the fact a person once committed a criminal offence or had an extra-marital Com /person/affair-whois.html'>Affair - if Com /person/the_details-whois.html'>The Details are judged to be "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive".

Google has said that since that time, with about 45% of the links ultimately getting delisted.

This involves both removing the results from its European sites - such as Google. fr, Google. co. uk and Google. de - as well as restricting results from its other sites - such as Google. Com - if it detects a search is being carried out Com /person/from_within-whois.html'>From Within Com /person/europe-whois.html'>Europe .

However, this means that users can still circumvent Com /person/the_action-whois.html'>The Action if they use a virtual private network (VPN) or other tool to mask their location.

Notably, the ECJ ruling said that delistings must "be accompanied by measures which effectively prevent or, at the very least, seriously discourage an internet user" from being able to access the results from one of Google's non-EU sites.

"It will be for Com /person/the_national-whois.html'>The National court to ascertain whether the measures put in place by Google Inc meet those requirements. "

News sites, including the BBC, are exempt from the rule, but may find that links to some of their old articles no longer appear on Google or other search engines.

Com /person/the_right-whois.html'>The Right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten should still apply to the UK if it leaves the EU, with or without a deal, at least in the short to medium-term.

"How it's applied might diverge over time, as UK courts no longer follow ECJ decisions and the Supreme Court in the UK wrestles with these points instead," a spokesman for Linklaters told the BBC.

"But Com /person/day_one-whois.html'>Day One , we're going to have a UK version of the GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation], including a right to be Com /person/forgotten-whois.html'>Forgotten . "

privacy, european court of justice, google

Source of news: bbc.com