But the European Court of Justice declared
there is “no obligation under EU law for a
search engine operator” to abide by the rule
beyond the EU.
It said, however, that a search engine operator
must put measures in place to discourage
internet users from going outside the EU to find
the deleted information.
The decision highlighted the growing tension
between privacy and the public’s right to know
and underscored the difficulties in enforcing
different jurisdictions’ rules when it comes to
the borderless internet.
It also illustrated the way the internet is
regulated more heavily in Europe than in
the U.S., where authorities are constrained
by the First Amendment guarantee of free
speech and freedom of the press. The U.S. has
no laws equivalent to Europe’s “right to be
forgotten” measure.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s senior privacy counsel,
welcomed the ruling and added that the U.S.
internet search giant has worked hard “to strike
a sensible balance between people’s rights of
access to information and privacy.”
Those who wanted to see the rule extended
beyond the EU argued that on the internet it
is easy to switch between national versions of
Google’s website — from google.fr to google.
com, for example — to find missing information.