Wikipedia founder expresses surprise at ruling in Google privacy case

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has reacted with surprise to the ruling of the European Court that Google must remove search results that infringe privacy. “I have rarely seen such extensive internet censorship,” said Wales.

According to Wales, there is a good chance that Google will defend itself against the ruling. “It would be stupid not to do that because if they have to deal with complaints from everyone who complains about a photo they posted last week, it’s going to be very difficult for them.” Wales did his statements according to the BBC on a British radio station.

On Tuesday, the European Court ruled that search engines must remove results that infringe privacy, even if the page Google links to is legitimate. The EU court examined a Spanish court case in which a Spanish man complained that a 1998 newspaper article in which he was mentioned could be found via Google. Because the newspaper article was about his house being auctioned because of debt, he wanted the link removed from Google’s search results.

Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Justice, was more nuanced about the ruling. According to her, the ruling of the EU court proves that the legislation, which dates back to the ‘digital stone age’, must be brought into line with practice.