EU court rules against Google in 'right to be forgotten' case
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 05/13/2014 08:01 AM [ Comments ]
Privacy rights supporters have received a welcome ruling from Europe's top court; the court ruled that users have the right to have their "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" information removed from Google internet searches.
According to the Guardian, the test case ruling by the European Union's court of justice against Google Spain was brought by a Spanish man, Mario Costeja González, after he failed to secure the deletion of an auction notice of his repossessed home dating from 1998 on the website of a mass circulation newspaper in Catalonia.
The European court judges ruled that under existing EU data protection laws Google had to erase links to two pages on La Vanguardia's website from the results that are produced when González's name is put into the search engine.
González argued that the matter, in which his house had been auctioned to recover his social security debts, had been resolved and should no longer be linked to him whenever his name was searched on Google.
Google said: "This is a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general. We are very surprised that it differs so dramatically from the advocate general's opinion and the warnings and consequences that he spelled out. We now need to take time to analyse the implications." They also said, the ruling amounts to censorship and may possibly lead to greater surveillance.
The European court judges ruled that under existing EU data protection laws Google had to erase links to two pages on La Vanguardia's website from the results that are produced when González's name is put into the search engine.
González argued that the matter, in which his house had been auctioned to recover his social security debts, had been resolved and should no longer be linked to him whenever his name was searched on Google.
Google said: "This is a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general. We are very surprised that it differs so dramatically from the advocate general's opinion and the warnings and consequences that he spelled out. We now need to take time to analyse the implications." They also said, the ruling amounts to censorship and may possibly lead to greater surveillance.
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