‘Right to be forgotten’ only affects Google in EU

GOOGLE is not required to apply an EU “right to be forgotten” to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU’s top court ruled yesterday in a landmark decision.

The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe’s borders or not.

The US Internet giant had argued that the removal of search results required under EU law should not extend to its google. com domain or its other non-EU sites.

The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as Google must carry out “de-referencing” of links as demanded by a regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its sites, that “right to be forgotten” did not need to go further.

But it did stress that de-referencing on EU sites must include measures to “seriously discourage” a European Internet user being able to get around the “right to be forgotten” by accessing unrestricted results from a search engine on a nonEU domain.

That demands “geo-blocking,” which Google says it already uses effectively in Europe.

But it was unclear the legal battle over the issue is entirely over. The French data regulator CNIL, whose fight since 2014 to have Google apply the “right to be forgotten” to all its search domains sparked the EU court case, reacted by saying the ruling did not expressly prevent it demanding worldwide dereferencing.

CNIL also said it was up to France’s highest court to deem whether Google’s geo-blocking technology was sufficient.

(AFP)