Judicial Institution
The second preliminary question analyzed by the Court of Justice of the European Union is the possibility of considering Google’s activity as subject to European laws and judicial institutions. It was understood that there was a division of tasks between the North American headquarters (responsible for data processing) and the Spanish subsidiary (responsible for marketing the group’s advertising in Spain) derecho al olvido.
Google’s defense consisted of the argument that “ the processing of personal data at issue in the main proceedings is carried out exclusively by Google Inc., which operates Google Search without any intervention by Google Spain, whose activity is limited to providing support for advertising activity. of the Google group that is distinct from its search engine service ”.
Fundamental Right
For the Court of Justice, however, Directive 95/46 aims to “ ensure effective and complete protection of the freedoms and fundamental rights of individuals, in particular the right to privacy, with regard to the processing of personal data. ” , so that “ the latter expression cannot be interpreted restrictively (see, by analogy, judgment in L’Oréal and others, C ‑ 324/09, EU:C:2011:474, paragraphs 62 and 63) ”.
There would, therefore, be an inseparable link between the parent company and the subsidiary, even if there is a division of labor between them, not least because “ the activities related to advertising spaces are the means to make the search engine in question economically profitable and that this engine is, at the same time, the means that allows these activities to be carried out mario costeja ”.
Right To Erase Personal Data
The existence of a “right to erase personal data” . The third chapter of the judgment of greatest interest for this column is the one that answers the problem of knowing whether “ the operator of a search engine is obliged to delete from the list of results displayed following a search carried out from the name of a person links to other web pages.
Published by third parties and containing information about that person, also in the event that that name or that information is not previously or simultaneously deleted from those web pages, that is, where appropriate, even when their publication on said pages is, in itself, lawful ”. Google’s thesis is that requests to “erase data”, based on the principle of proportionality, should be addressed to the editor of the site on which the information was posted.
Simple Recognition
The pure and simple recognition of a right to erase data implies disregarding the “ fundamental rights of web page editors, other internet users or the operator itself ”. This and other ancillary issues will be analyzed in the next column, which will also replace the terminology problem — right to be forgotten, right to be forgotten, right to be left alone and right to erase data — and its reflexes in Brazilian law.
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