Google Not Bound To Apply 'Right To Be Forgotten' Globally, Holds European Court of Justice [Read Judgment]

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Google is not bound to apply the 'Right to be Forgotten' globally, but only in the member states of the European Union.The case reached the Court after the French Data Protection Authority, France imposed a Penalty of EUR 100 000 on Google because of its refusal, when granting a de-referencing request, to apply it to all its search. The case reached the Court after the French Data Protection Authority, France imposed a Penalty of EUR 100 000 on Google because of its refusal, when granting a de-referencing request, to apply it to all its search engine's domain name extensions. 'Right to erasure ', is worded as follows: The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay where one of the following grounds applies: the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed; the data subject withdraws consent on which the processing is based according to point of Article 6, or point of Article 9, and where there is no other legal ground for the processing; the data subject objects to the processing pursuant to Article 21 and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing, or the data subject objects to the processing pursuant to Article 21; the personal data have been unlawfully processed; the personal data have to be erased for compliance with a legal obligation in Union or Member State law to which the controller is subject; the personal data have been collected in relation to the offer of information society services. It held as follows: "Where a search engine operator grants a request for de-referencing pursuant to those provisions, that operator is not required to carry out that de-referencing on all versions of its search engine, but on the versions of that search engine corresponding to all the Member States, using, where necessary, measures which, while meeting the legal requirements, effectively prevent or, at the very least, seriously discourage an internet user conducting a search from one of the Member States on the basis of a data subject's name from gaining access, via the list of results displayed following that search, to the links which are the subject of that request."