{"id":3635,"date":"2015-09-30T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T13:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=3635"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:34","slug":"rtbf-sweeps-europe-on-to-world-tour-gonzalez-means-google-must-remove-links-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/rtbf-sweeps-europe-on-to-world-tour-gonzalez-means-google-must-remove-links-worldwide\/","title":{"rendered":"RTBF Sweeps Europe, On to World Tour: Gonz\u00e1lez means Google Must Remove links Worldwide"},"content":{"rendered":"

For anyone who has regretted a Facebook post, or vehemently wished to take back personal information relinquished to the internet, Europe\u2019s Gonz\u00e1lez <\/em>decision may offer hope.\u00a0 Petitioner Gonz\u00e1lez sued Google<\/a> for promulgating links to sites containing information about financial troubles he suffered approximately twenty years ago, perennially visible via Google name searches.\u00a0 Gonz\u00e1lez argued that the links no longer accurately represented him, and so should not continue to dominate his named search results.\u00a0 As Gonz\u00e1lez articulated, in many European countries, a \u201cright to be forgotten\u201d or RTBF, has coalesced in response to search engines like Google, and their ability to enshrine personal data on the internet.\u00a0 The right to be forgotten has gained traction in several nations, spurred by lawsuits demanding old, outdated, or non-relevant damaging information be taken offline.
\nThese claims culminated with the Gonz\u00e1lez case, a 2014 landmark decision by the European Court of Justice, ordering Google to respond to user petitions to take down search results linking individual\u2019s names to articles or sites containing damaging information.<\/p>\n

It recognized that when we enter someone\u2019s name as a search query, scattered moments of their life are presented mechanistically, with a significance distorted by lack of context, building a detailed but selective profile. So what are the rights of the individuals to whom those profiles relate? And what are the rights of those seeking information<\/a>?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ruling leaves intact Google\u2019s discretion whether or not to remove contested links.
\nSince Gonz\u00e1lez was handed down, more than 250,000 requests for removal of links have been submitted to Google throughout Europe.\u00a0 On its new transparency page, Google assures users it analyzes each request for link removal, balancing the right to be forgotten with a public right to information.
\nThe Gonz\u00e1lez ruling was extended, however in June, 2015 by the French Court (Commission Nationale de l\u2019Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL).\u00a0 CNIL<\/a> and other French privacy organizations chided Google for removing RTBF links from European domains only, such as France\u2019s google.fr.\u00a0 CNIL ascertained that complying with Gonz\u00e1lez meant Google must remove RTBF links not only from their European domains, such as France\u2019s google.fr and Britain\u2019s google.uk, but from Google domains around the world, including American Google.com.\u00a0 To do less than that, CNIL found, would render the Gonz\u00e1lez ruling meaningless; users could simply use domains such as Google.com to access content removed from European domains.
\nIn response, Google refuses to extend its link removal beyond European domains, acting consistently, it says, with the jurisdiction of European courts.\u00a0 Removing links from domains worldwide would extend Gonz\u00e1lez, and European privacy law, to all nations around the world.\u00a0 Google has ignored CNIL\u2019s June ruling, and CNIL President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin\u2019s support of the order:\u00a0 \u201cthis decision does not show any willingness . . . to apply French law extraterritorially<\/a>.\u201d
\nThere exists no further avenue for appeal at this time for Google.\u00a0 If Google refuses to comply, substantial fees will be imposed, the first of potential sanctions for the search engine.
\nAlthough the \u201cright to be forgotten\u201d emerged from established European privacy law, American privacy law doesn\u2019t seem conducive to similar RTBF support.\u00a0 Active First Amendment jurisprudence and the public right to information in the US may chill similar suits against Google or other search engines.\u00a0 This can be traced largely to the third party doctrine, and Google\u2019s successful characterization of its search engine as a public area.
\nThe third party doctrine likely forecloses a similar holding against Google in the US.\u00a0 Individuals wishing to remove damaging information about themselves must defeat the presumption that information disclosed to third parties is no longer subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy.\u00a0 Indeed, the Gonz\u00e1lez test mandating Google remove \u201cinadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive<\/a>\u201d is difficult to reconcile with Americans\u2019 reasonable expectations of privacy.\u00a0 Recently, however Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, in her 2012 US v. Jones concurrence, questioned the continuing use of the third party doctrine in America\u2019s digital, technology-driven society.\u00a0 A reboot in \u201creasonable expectations of privacy\u201d for the age of the internet could create room in American Jurisprudence for a comparable \u201cright to be forgotten.\u201d
\nFurthermore, Google has continuously marketed its search engine as a \u201cpublic space\u201d, executive Eric Schmidt comparing it to a card catalogue.\u00a0 This characterization may represent Google\u2019s activities in an overly neutral way.\u00a0 Casting Google as a space of open, accessible information \u201cimplies objectivity \u2026 and public record<\/a>,\u201d and equates removing links with constraining access to information, when removal actually represents an individual\u2019s prerogative for privacy and reputation.\u00a0 Google actively \u201ccurate[s] its search results<\/a>,\u201d meaning its site is less an open space than \u201calgebraic representation of privately owned services<\/a>.\u201d
\nThe characterization of these issues and how privacy concerns and public right to information are represented will be crucial in how RTBF is considered in the US.\u00a0 Until then, Google will contest the French mandate applying the Gonz\u00e1lez case, portraying itself as a bulwark of the public\u2019s right to information.\u00a0 The third party doctrine and Google\u2019s sophisticated self-portrayal are both substantial roadblocks to developing the right to be forgotten in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For anyone who has regretted a Facebook post, or vehemently wished to take back personal information relinquished to the internet, Europe\u2019s Gonz\u00e1lez decision may offer hope.\u00a0 Petitioner Gonz\u00e1lez sued Google for promulgating links to sites containing information about financial troubles he suffered approximately twenty years ago, perennially visible via Google name searches.\u00a0 Gonz\u00e1lez argued that …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7298,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3635\/revisions\/7298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}