EU Court advisor: Google does not have to delete search results on all domains

Google does not have to remove search results it removes due to the European right to be forgotten on all its domains, but only for visitors within the EU. The Advocate General advises the Court of Justice on this.

Advocate General Maciej Szpunar says in his advice to the Court of Justice that search engines should do everything in their power to prevent users located within the EU from seeing search results that should be removed under the ‘right to forget’ . Removing the results for all users worldwide is going too far, so that people can still come across the results in search engines via a vpn. The Advocate General’s advice is important, but the Court need not follow it. That happens in many cases.

The Court of Justice, the highest court in the European Union, will decide within a few months on Google’s case against the French privacy authority CNIL. CNIL wants Google to remove search results worldwide and fined the search company. Google disagrees with the French authority and filed a case.

The Advocate General says in a second opinion to the Court of Justice that search engines should be obliged to systematically comply with requests to remove links to Internet pages containing sensitive data. In addition, the operator of the search engine should be obliged to weigh up privacy interests, freedom of expression and the public’s right to access information. In doing so, the Advocate General wants to prevent Google from proceeding to removal too quickly and not sufficiently protecting other rights in such a case.

The European Court ruled in May 2014 that individuals have the right to be forgotten and that it is therefore mandatory for search engines to remove search results if privacy is at stake. Shortly afterwards, Google put a form online with which to submit a removal request.