Google wins EU fight against worldwide 'right to be forgotten'

LUXEMBOURG, Sept 24 (AFP): Google is not required to apply an EU "right to be forgotten" to its search engine domains outside Europe, the EU's top court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision.
The European Court of Justice handed victory to Google in the case, seen as crucial in determining whether EU online regulation should apply beyond Europe's borders or not.
The US internet giant had argued that the removal of search results required under EU law should not extend to its google.com domain or its other non-EU sites.
The court ruled that, while a search engine operator such as Google must carry out "de-referencing" of links as demanded by a regulator or court in an EU state to all European versions of its sites, that "right to be forgotten" did not need to go further.
"There is no obligation under EU law" for search engine operators such as Google "to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine," the court said.
But it did stress that de-referencing on EU sites must include measures to "seriously discourage" a European internet user being able to get around the "right to be forgotten" by accessing unrestricted results from a search engine on a non-EU domain.
That demands "geo-blocking", which Google says it already uses effectively in Europe.
Savvy internet users, however, can get around that measure with a VPN that masks the user's location, or by going to some non-Google search engines.
The EU court case, seen as pitting individuals' rights to privacy online against freedom of information, stemmed from a legal battle waged by France since 2014 to have Google apply the "right to be forgotten" to all its search domains.