Two recent tech-related rulings from the E.U. Court of Justice demonstrate inconsistencies in whether the decisions apply just within the European Union or more globally.
Over the past five years, the E.U. Court of Justice has ruled that Google must comply with the request of E.U. citizens to remove certain search engine results reflecting past actions of the citizens, or the so-called “right to be forgotten.” Earlier this year, the E.U. Advocate General recommended that the decision be on a global scale. On September 24, 2019, the E.U. Court of Justice ruled that Google must only scrub search results from its European indexes rather than globally.
In October 2019, the E.U. Court of Justice issued a ruling on how individual countries can order Facebook to remove content that such country’s courts consider defamatory. The court determined that EU law “does not preclude” such courts from ordering the removal of such content on a global scale.
The Google ruling is available here and the Facebook ruling is available here. Contact us at Ossian Law P. C. regarding any information technology law matter.
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