The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled directives in favor of the EU’s Citizen against Google.
It begins on 2010, a Spanish citizen named Mario Costeja Gonzales who sued Google and asked to have links to his private data -that pointed to 1998 newspaper article that detailed his social security debts- deleted from the search results. The Spaniard claims Google has violated his data protection rights by putting an outdated and an inadequate information links.
This simple private case made its way until it comes before the ECJ and it becomes a turning point in the field of protecting individual’s privacy and personal data. Accordingly, it has enormous implications because the ECJ obliged Google to respect citizen’s requests to remove data under penalty of being enabled to continue operating in Europe. The highest court in Europe mandate that European citizens have a say in what Google can disclose in search results and at the same time, asserts that Google is technically responsible for the links it provides in its search results. Google is no longer a processor of information; it is more established as a high qualified controller of information. (suite…)