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Google Must Honor Requests to Delete Links, European Court Rules European Court Lets Users Erase Records on Web
(about 1 hour later)
The highest European court on Tuesday gave individuals the right to influence what can be learned about them through Web searches, rejecting long-established practices about the free flow of information on the Internet. Europe’s highest court said on Tuesday that people had the right to influence what the world could learn about them through online searches, a ruling that rejected long-established notions about the free flow of information on the Internet.
Before, people who did not like what was being said about them online needed to go the original source of the information and persuade the website to delete it. That was arduous and often impossible. But the European court said the middleman — the search engine — could be asked to simply delete the links. A search engine like Google should allow online users to be “forgotten” after a certain time by erasing links to web pages unless there are “particular reasons” not to, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg said.
In some ways, the court is trying to erase the last 25 years, when people learned to routinely Google every potential suitor, partner or friend. In 1990, finding out the true history of a blind date or business collaborator was practically impossible. The decision underlined the power of search companies to retrieve controversial information while simultaneously placing sharp limits on their ability to do so. It raised the possibility that a Google search could become as cheery — and as one-sided — as a Facebook profile or an About.me page.
“It could result in giving people a line-item veto over results on searches about themselves,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor at Harvard Law School. “Some will see this as corrupting. Others will see it as purifying.” Jonathan Zittrain, a law and computer science professor at Harvard, said those who were determined to shape their online personas could in essence have veto power over what they wanted people to know.
He is siding with the former group, warning that Google research results could become equivalent to About.Me. “Some will see this as corrupting,” he said. “Others will see it as purifying. I think it’s a bad solution to a very real problem, which is that everything is now on our permanent records.”
Others argue that search was never neutral, and that the ruling, by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, is in tune with how people want to live. In some ways, the court is trying to erase the last 25 years, when people learned to routinely check out online every potential suitor, partner or friend. Under the court’s ruling, information would still exist on websites, court documents and online archives of newspapers, but people would not necessarily know it was there.
“More and more Internet users want a little of the ephemerality and the forgetfulness of the pre-digital days,” said Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of Internet governance at the Oxford Internet Institute. “They don’t want their drunken pictures to follow them the next 30 years.” In the United States, the court’s ruling would clash with the First Amendment. But the decision heightens a growing uneasiness everywhere over the Internet’s ability to persistently define people against their will.
The court said data privacy officials in European countries would have the final say on whether a link should be removed, but gave no objective standard beyond saying that search links should be “relevant.” It also said Google should err on the side of removing links when requested. “More and more Internet users want a little of the ephemerality and the forgetfulness of predigital days,” said Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of Internet governance at the Oxford Internet Institute.
But one person’s relevance is another’s ancient history. Should a businessman be able to expunge a link to his bankruptcy a decade ago? How about five years? Could a would-be politician get a drunken-driving arrest removed by calling it a youthful folly? Young people, in particular, do not want their drunken pictures to follow them for the next 30 years. “If you’re always tied to the past, it’s difficult to grow, to change,” Mr. Mayer-Schönberger said. “Do we want to go into a world where we largely undo forgetting?”
The burden of fulfilling the court’s order will fall largely on Google, which is by far the dominant search engine in Europe. The court said search engines were not simply dumb pipes, but played an active role as data “controllers,” and must be held accountable for the links they provide. Search engines could be compelled to remove links to certain pages, it said, “even when the publication in itself on those pages is lawful.”
The decision stunned Google and just about everyone else. Google said it would need time to study the decision, which is a final judgment and cannot be appealed. The court also said that a search engine “as a general rule” should place the right to privacy over the right of the public to find information.
The case before the court involved a Spanish lawyer who tried to get Google to remove links to online newspaper accounts from the 1990s of his debt and tax troubles. The court ruled that companies like Google could be “obliged to remove links to web pages” unless there are “particular reasons, such as the role played by the data subject in public life,” not to, according to a summary of the judgment. A search engine would have to remove the links even when the original “publication in itself on those pages is lawful,” the court said. Left unclarified was exactly what history remains relevant. Should a businessman be able to expunge a link to his bankruptcy a decade ago? Could a would-be politician get a drunken-driving arrest removed by calling it a youthful folly?
The ruling would not necessarily require that the original publisher of the information delete it from its own website — arguing that individual websites are harder for users to find than information gathered through the data-sweeping capabilities of a search engine like Google’s. The burden of fulfilling the court’s directives will fall largely on Google, which is by far the dominant search engine in Europe. It has more than 90 percent of the search business in France and Germany.
Al Verney, a spokesman for Google, said in a statement that the decision was “a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general,” and that the company would “take time” to analyze the implications. Google was “very surprised” that the judgment “differs so dramatically” from a preliminary ruling by the court last year that mostly went in the company’s favor, he said. Google said in a statement that the ruling was “disappointing” and that the company was “very surprised” it differed so much from a preliminary verdict last year that was largely in its favor. Because the European Court of Justice is the highest court in the European Union, Google cannot appeal Tuesday’s decision.
Some Internet experts said the court had devised an unwieldy and expensive formula for search engines like Google that could lead to less information being searchable online. The decision leaves many other questions unanswered. Among them is whether information would be dropped only on Google sites in individual countries, or whether it would be also erased from Google.com. Even as Europe has largely erased its internal physical borders, the ruling could impose digital borders.
“Having search engines conduct a public interest test is problematic, not least because they will be challenged to carry out the kind of thorough assessments that can done by courts and other public authorities,” said Orla Lynskey, a lecturer in law at the London School of Economics. “I expect the default action by search engines will be to take down information in response to complaints,” she said. Another open question is how much effort a search engine should reasonably spend investigating complaints.
A trade group for information technology companies said the court’s decision posed a threat to free expression in Europe. ‘'This ruling opens the door to large-scale private censorship in Europe,” said James Waterworth, the head of the Brussels office for the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which has Facebook, Microsoft and Google among its members, as well as European companies like BT and T-Mobile. ‘'While the ruling likely means to offer protections, our concern is it could also be misused by politicians or others with something to hide who could demand to have information taken down,” he said. “I expect the default action by search engines will be to take down information,” said Orla Lynskey, a lecturer in law at the London School of Economics.
The judgment on Tuesday reversed what had seemed a preliminary victory for Google in June 2013, when an adviser to the court, Niilo Jaaskinen, issued an opinion implying that Google did not need to remove the links. A trade group for information technology companies said the court’s decision posed a threat to free expression.
The European case began in 2009 when Mario Costeja, the lawyer in Spain, complained that entering his name in Google’s search engine led to legal notices dating back to 1998 in an online version of a Spanish newspaper that detailed his accumulated debts and the forced sale of his property. “This ruling opens the door to large-scale private censorship in Europe,” said James Waterworth, the head of the Brussels office for the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which counts Facebook, Microsoft and Google among its members. “While the ruling likely means to offer protections, our concern is it could also be misused by politicians or others with something to hide.”
Mr. Costeja said that the debt issues had been resolved many years earlier and were no longer relevant. That view was echoed by Big Brother Watch, a London-based digital rights group that was perhaps the first to invoke the specter of Orwell.
When the newspaper that had published the information, La Vanguardia, refused to remove the notices, and when Google refused to expunge the links, Mr. Costeja complained to the Spanish Data Protection Agency that his rights to the protection of his personal data were being violated. “The principle that you have a right to be forgotten is a laudable one, but it was never intended to be a way for people to rewrite history,” said Emma Carr, the organization’s acting director.
The Spanish authority ordered Google to remove the links in July 2010, but it did not impose any order on La Vanguardia. Mr. Mayer-Schönberger, the author of “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age,” said such concerns were overblown. He said the court was affirming what had been standard European practice.
Google challenged the order, and the National High Court of Spain referred the case to the European court for advice on how to rule. “If you look at how often people in Europe have gone to a data processor like Google to require it to delete information, I think it would be in the thousands, at best, over 30 years,” he said. “I don’t think this will lead to the end of the Internet as we know it.”
Tuesday’s ruling, while indicating what the new legal framework will be for deciding such issues in European Union member states, sent the original case back to the Spanish court to settle Mr. Costeja’s complaint. Whatever the Spanish court might decide in terms of La Vanguardia’s obligation to remove the disputed material from its database, Mr. Costeja’s lawyer said it was a victory because Google would be required to remove the online links. Michael Fertik is chief executive of Reputation.com, which helps people improve their search results into something they find less objectionable.
“We’ve very happy because even though we were confident all along, this has been a very difficult process, given the massive means that Google could use” to defend itself, said Joaquín Muñoz, a partner at Abanlex, a Spanish law firm that specializes in technology cases. “The fundamental point is that consumers will now know what the rules of the game are and how to defend their rights.” “For the first time, human dignity will get the same treatment online as copyright,” Mr. Fertik said. “It will be protected under the law. That’s a huge deal.”
The only loser, he said, was Google. “It no longer gets to profit from your misery.”
And perhaps Reputation.com. “This ruling is not necessarily favorable for my business,” he said.
Those who worry that many people might use the ruling to retouch their digital portraits may find support in the case that began it.
The case started in 2009 when Mario Costeja, a Spanish lawyer, complained that entering his name in Google led to legal notices dating to 1998 in an online version of a Spanish newspaper that detailed his debts and the forced sale of his property.
Mr. Costeja said the debt issues had been resolved many years earlier and were no longer relevant. So he asked the newspaper that had published the information, La Vanguardia, to remove the notices and Google to expunge the links. When they refused, Mr. Costeja complained to the Spanish Data Protection Agency that his rights to the protection of his personal data were being violated.
The Spanish authority ordered Google to remove the links in July 2010, but it did not impose any order on La Vanguardia. Google challenged the order, and the National High Court of Spain referred the case to the European court.
Mr. Costeja’s lawyer, Joaquín Muñoz, said Tuesday’s ruling was a victory not only for his client but all Europeans. “The fundamental point is that consumers will now know what the rules of the game are and how to defend their rights,” he said.