Unforgettable that’s what you are – Google Spain revisited

The debates over whether the CJEU’s judgment in Google Spain represents an unjustified attack on free speech rights have raged for months now. Interestingly, it seems that some judges at the local level at least are proving somewhat resistant to this highly privacy-centred judgment. Thus, according to online reports, in recent weeks a Dutch preliminary court has apparently held that a man convicted of a serious offence dating back over some years could not rely on Google Spain to have the links to websites referring to the offence excised. According to reports about the judgment (which seems only to be available in Dutch), the court held that information revealing that someone has committed an offence has relevance notwithstanding its vintage and, as such, should not be de-indexed by Google (see here). Outside of Europe, a judge sitting in the Israeli magistrate’s court has apparently refused to countenance a claim against Google based on the so-called right to be forgotten. According to a report in the Israel Hayom online newspaper, the judge held that imposing an obligation on Google to de-index results, even if they were defamatory, would entail converting Google unjustifiably into a ‘super-censor’ (see the report here). It will be interesting to see how the English courts, with their strong tradition of upholding free speech rights, will in due course seek to navigate their way through the challenging jurisprudential landscape set by the CJEU in Google Spain.

Anya Proops