|
In
May 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that people
could ask search engines, such as Google and Microsoft's Bing,
to remove inadequate or irrelevant information from web results
appearing under searches for people's names - dubbed the "right
to be forgotten".
Google complied, but it only scrubbed results across its
European websites such as Google.de in Germany and Google.fr in
France, arguing that to do otherwise would set a dangerous
precedent on the territorial reach of national laws.
In February it also started delisting results across all its
domains - including Google.com - when accessed from the country
where the request came from.
The French regulator, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique
et des Libertes (CNIL), fined Google 100,000 euros ($112,150.00)
in March for not delisting more widely, arguing that was the
only way to uphold Europeans' right to privacy.
"As a matter of both law and principle, we disagree with this
demand," Kent Walker, Google's Senior Vice President and General
Counsel, wrote in a blog post.
"We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate.
But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until
other countries - perhaps less open and democratic - start
demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have
global reach?"
The company filed its appeal of the CNIL's order with France's
supreme administrative court, the Council of State.
A spokeswoman for the Council of State said that the court
hadn't yet received the formal appeal and that the procedure
would take "several months." A spokeswoman for the CNIL wasn't
immediately available for comment.
The CNIL has argued that the right to privacy should not depend
on the location of a third person and that extending the right
to be forgotten to all of Google's versions does not curtail the
freedom of expression because no content is actually deleted --
it simply does not appear in search results.
"One nation does not make laws for another," said Dave Price,
senior product counsel, Google.
"Data protection law, in France and around Europe, is explicitly
territorial, that is limited to the territory of the country
whose law is being applied."
Google accepts around 40 percent of requests for the removal of
links popping up under searches for people's names, according to
its Transparency Report.
(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Alexandra Hudson)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
|
