Google wins EU fight against worldwide ‘right to be forgotten’

Google is not required to apply an EU “right to be forgotten” to
its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU’s top court ruled
Tuesday in a landmark decision.

The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the
case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation
should apply beyond Europe’s borders or not.

The US internet giant had argued that the removal of search
results required under EU law should not extend to its google.com
domain or its other non-EU sites.

The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as
Google must carry out “de-referencing” of links as demanded by a
regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its
sites, that “right to be forgotten” did not need to go further.

“There is no obligation under EU law” for search engine
operators such as Google “to carry out such a de-referencing on all
the versions of its search engine,” the court said.

But it did stress that de-referencing on EU sites must include
measures to “seriously discourage” a European internet user being
able to get around the “right to be forgotten” by accessing
unrestricted results from a search engine on a non-EU domain.

That demands “geo-blocking”, which Google says it already uses
effectively in Europe.

Savvy internet users, however, can get around that measure with
a VPN that masks the user’s location, or by going to some
non-Google search engines.

– Google hails win –
The EU court case, seen as pitting individuals’ rights to privacy
online against freedom of information, stemmed from a legal battle
waged by France since 2014 to have Google apply the “right to be
forgotten” to all its search domains.

If France had won, it could have deepened a rift between Europe
and the United States, which is home to most of the internet’s
behemoths and whose President Donald Trump has railed against what
he sees as EU meddling in US business.

In the end, though, the court found that EU law on the issue did
not seek to have the “right to be forgotten” extend beyond its
borders.

Google hailed Tuesday’s decision by the EU court.

“It’s good to see that the court agreed with our arguments,” its
lawyer, Peter Fleischer, said in a statement, adding that Google
has worked “to strike a sensible balance between people’s rights of
access to information and privacy”.

The US company and other stakeholders had warned that
authoritarian countries outside Europe could abuse global
de-referencing requests to cover up rights violations.

– Closely watched case –
Google’s position was bolstered in January by a non-binding opinion
from the EU court’s top legal advisor, advocate general Maciej
Szpunar, who recommended judges “should limit the scope of the
de-referencing that search engine operators are required to carry
out, to the EU”.

The case had been closely watched, especially as Europe has also
already emerged as a global rule-setter in terms of data protection
on the internet.

A 2016 General Data Protection Regulation it enacted that covers
all EU citizens and residents has forced many sites and companies
around the globe to comply with its measures.

In terms of the “right to be forgotten” legal fight, France’s
data regulator, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des
Libertes (CNIL), had argued that, for de-referencing to be
effective, it must apply to all domains wherever they are.

In 2016, CNIL fined Google 100,000 euros ($110,000) for
non-compliance. Google appealed to France’s highest court, which in
turn referred to the European Court of Justice, ending up with
Tuesday’s ruling.

(AFP)

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