EU court: Google does not have to remove search results worldwide on request

Google does not need to apply the ‘right to be forgotten’ globally. Links to information that users want removed should only be removed in Europe, the European Court of Justice concludes in a long-running lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by the French privacy watchdog CNIL. It demanded that Google remove certain erroneous or harmful pages from the search results upon request. Google did, but only for European users. CNIL found that Google should block the results worldwide, and fined Google 100,000 euros for the ‘violation’. Google appealed and challenged the rulings to the highest European court. The European Court of Justice now rules in favor of Google.

“There is currently no obligation under European law for a search engine maker to ‘de-reference’ all versions of its search engine,” the ruling reads. “It is obliged to do so for all Member State-specific versions and must take measures to discourage internet users from accessing the relevant links displayed on the non-EU versions of that search engine from one of the Member States.” The Court adds that it is not prohibited to implement such ‘de-references’.

The ruling is a new step in the years-long battle for the ‘right to be forgotten’. This has existed since 2014, when the European Court also issued a ruling. The Court then concluded that a Spanish man had the right to have his name removed from Google search results. Google has always said it’s not fair to remove search results worldwide. Other major tech companies, including Microsoft, Wikimedia and various press freedom organizations shared that view. Google used a geoblock for European users for the removal. This means that users with a VPN can bypass the block relatively easily.

Google says it has received 845,501 requests since the right to be forgotten. It would involve a total of more than 3.3 million URLs, of which the company has removed 45 percent. The verdict comes as no surprise. In January, the Solicitor General of the Court advised the same. The Court is not obliged to follow such advice, although this often happens in practice.