Mario Gonzales recently brought the Spanish government to the European Court of Justice arguing that data should be removed from Google if it was no longer accurate or relevant or it was excessive or inadequate. In his case, if you searched his name in Spain, an article would appear describing how he had to sell his house in order to deal with certain debts. The debt issue had long since been resolved but the article continued to appear.
Google vigorously contested this case because it could have very far reaching consequences. This applies to Google but also applies to any other “data controller”.
This was an extraordinary victory for the protection of personal data and certainly represents a blow to Google and other search engines. We are currently involved in a number of legal actions involving Google, YouTube, Facebook and other social media organisations where information has appeared that can be defamatory but it is certainly interesting to note that a private individual can now force these organisations to remove information about them where they can show that the information is no longer accurate or if it is entirely out of date and excessive and would appear to apply to photographs of, for instance, embarrassing teenage episodes or even insults on social media websites.
In this David v. Goliath battle, it looks like David is fighting back!
To learn more about the decision in this case, see our recent blog post here.
Google vigorously contested this case because it could have very far reaching consequences. This applies to Google but also applies to any other “data controller”.
This was an extraordinary victory for the protection of personal data and certainly represents a blow to Google and other search engines. We are currently involved in a number of legal actions involving Google, YouTube, Facebook and other social media organisations where information has appeared that can be defamatory but it is certainly interesting to note that a private individual can now force these organisations to remove information about them where they can show that the information is no longer accurate or if it is entirely out of date and excessive and would appear to apply to photographs of, for instance, embarrassing teenage episodes or even insults on social media websites.
In this David v. Goliath battle, it looks like David is fighting back!
To learn more about the decision in this case, see our recent blog post here.
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