On Thursday, Europe's top court said that Google must delete online search results about people if they can prove that the information is inaccurate.
The European Court of Justice ruled that search engines must «dereference information» if the person making the request can demonstrate that the material is «manifestly inaccurate».
People in Europe already have the right to ask Google and other search engines to delete links to outdated or embarrassing information about themselves, even if it is true, under a principle known as the «right to be forgotten».
The Alphabet-owned company had rejected the requests, saying it did not know whether the articles' information was accurate.
A German court subsequently sought advice from the ECJ on balance between the right to be forgotten and the right to freedom of expression and information.
«The data subject's rights to protection of private life and protection of personal data override, as a general rule, the legitimate interest of internet users who may be interested in accessing the information in question,» the court said in its judgement.
When a user requests dereferencing and submits «relevant and sufficient evidence» that can demonstrate «the manifest inaccuracy» of the information they want to be removed from the Internet, the search engine operator is required to accede to that request, the court said.
A Google spokesperson said that the links and thumbnails in question were no longer available through web and image searches and that the content had been offline for a long time.
This is, at its core, a good decision as the protection of private life is more important. But I think there will be cases when this is not the case and the interest of the others should outweigh the private interest of one person.
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