An expert opinion requested by the European Court of Justice, which is based in Luxembourg, recommended that Google not be forced to expunge all links to a 15-year-old legal notice published in a Barcelona newspaper documenting a Spanish man’s failure to pay back taxes.
The recommendation of the court’s advocate general, Niilo Jääskinen, who acted as an official fact-finder for the panel, could inform the debate in the European Union’s Parliament over updating Europe’s 1995 data protection law, which was adopted at the dawn of the Internet broadband era. A proposal before the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the European Union’s upper chamber, would give residents of the 27-nation bloc broader control over the display of personal information, including the digital “right to be forgotten.”
Mr. Jääskinen concluded that Spain’s ability to enforce the 1995 European law within its borders gave it jurisdiction over Google, which operates a local advertising business aimed at Spanish citizens. But, he concluded, because Google merely aggregated existing information on the Web and was not a “controller” of information, it was not the legal entity that must comply with the provision of the law in question.
In addition, Mr. Jääskinen said Europe’s 1995 data protection law guaranteed a right to be forgotten only in cases where information was incomplete or inaccurate, which was not at issue in the Spanish case.
Wishing to eliminate embarrassing information is not reason enough to redact public records via Google, the court-appointed expert concluded.
The 1995 law, the court recommendation said, “does not entitle a person to restrict or terminate dissemination of personal data that he considers to be harmful or contrary to his interests.
The case before the European court involved a Spaniard, Mario Costeja, who wanted Google to eliminate all links to a 1998 legal notice in a Barcelona newspaper, La Vanguardia, with details of a government auction of his property for failure to pay back taxes. One of Spain’s top courts in Madrid, the Audienca Nacional, asked the European court last year for guidance on how to apply the 1995 law.
Expert recommendations like the one announced Tuesday are followed by the Court of Justice court tribunal in about three-quarters of cases. The court is expected to make its official ruling, which would give guidance to the Spanish high court, later this year.
Bill Echikson, who oversees Google’s freedom-of-expression activities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, welcomed the advocate general’s recommendation.
“This is a good opinion for free expression,” Mr. Echikson said. “We’re glad to see it supports our long-held view that requiring search engines to suppress ‘legitimate and legal information’ would amount to censorship.”
Javier Aparicio, a privacy lawyer with the Madrid firm of Cuatrecasas Goncalves Pereira, said the court’s recommendation would compel the Spanish data regulator, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, to end its practice of attempting to force Google to redact its own search results to suit the desires of Spanish citizens.
The Spanish regulator, in a statement, said it noted the advocate general’s opinion, but declined to comment on the recommendations ahead of the European court’s decision later this year.
The regulator said its policy of requesting deletions on behalf of Spanish citizens was not an attempt to squelch free expression or alter the historic record. Deletions were only requested of Google in cases where information was “obsolete, lacked any relevance or public interest, and where widespread dissemination would lead to the harm of the applicant,” the statement said.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/business/global/european-court-opinion-favors-google-in-privacy-battle.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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