How can we forget about this? Right to be forgotten in the light of CJEU's Facebook and Google Cases

Zitiervorschlag: Aleksander Wiatrowski, How can we forget about this? Right to be forgotten in the light of CJEU's Facebook and Google Cases, in: Jusletter IT 27. Februar 2020

Since in 2014 the famous Google Spain Case promoted the term Right to be Forgotten (RTBF) discussions and controversies have never stopped. Recent 2019’s rulings by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in Facebook and Google cases not only did not dispel some of the doubts, especially those about territorial scope of the RTBF but raised more questions and uncertainties. The court found that Facebook is required to delete content globally, not just in Europe if a European court decides that the content is defamatory. This ruling is almost the exact opposite of a recent Google case. Google is required to delist links under RTBF in EU but does not need to delist that same material around the globe. How to reconcile these two decisions? Is one of them wrong or the reason is the difference in the companies, Facebook and Google? However, the surprises continue. Specifically, because the EU’s E-Commerce Directive prohibits Member States from imposing general monitoring obligations on social media sites and other online providers. Government-imposed monitoring raises an array of privacy-related concerns in addition to the obvious speech concerns. Something that one would think the EU would be particularly concerned about, given its strong focus on protecting individual privacy and data protection.

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