The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is today considering whether the 'right to be forgotten' should be applied worldwide.
Back in 2014, the ECJ ruled that citizens should be allowed to request that 'inadequate, irrelevant or excessive' be removed from search results, after a Spanish man complained that Google Search was displaying links to the auction notice of his repossessed home.
In a compromise that looked extremely uneasy at the time, Google dealt with the ruling by complying in Europe, censoring results from google.co.uk, google.fr and so on. Later, it extended the measure to apply to anyone accessing any version of Google Search from Europe. However, anybody using, say, the US site Google.com via a VPN was still able to see the original, uncensored results.
However, a later 2015 hearing saw France's data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), win a clarification that delisting should be applied worldwide.
Google didn't comply, leading to a $112,000 fine in 2016 - after which it complained to the French courts and ultimately the ECJ.
Since 2014, Google's latest transparency report shows, it's received around 723,000 requests for removal, relating to 2.7 million links, and has agreed to remove them in 44 per cent of cases.
This latest case is based on complaints from four people wanting to have certain links removed. One concerns the relationship between the applicant and a person holding public office; another, the suicide of a member of the Church of Scientology. The third refers to criminal proceedings, and the fourth to a conviction for child sex abuse.
At issue here is whether the information reaches the 'inadequate, irrelevant or excessive' benchmark, and whether public interest should be a factor. However, the court is also to rule on the extent of delisting, and whether it should apply throughout the world.
A judgment is not expected until early 2019.
Rather unusually, the court is hearing opinions from civil rights groups who (also unusually) are taking Google's side.
"This case could see the right to be forgotten threatening global free speech. European data regulators should not be allowed to decide what internet users around the world find when they use a search engine," says Thomas Hughes, executive director of freedom of expression campaign group Article 19.
"The CJEU must limit the scope of the right to be forgotten in order to protect the right of internet users around the world to access information online."
Google's not commenting today; but back in November, general counsel Kent Walker, wrote that complying with the order 'would encourage other countries, including less democratic regimes, to try to impose their values on citizens in the rest of the world'.
"These cases represent a serious assault on the public's right to access lawful information," he added.
Of course, that was before it was revealed that the company was working on Project Dragonfly, a censored search engine for China...
