Right to be forgotten: Google defies France – Le Figaro

The US company said “no” to the injunction of the CNIL, the French Data Commision French and freedoms, to extend the ‘right to be forgotten’ to all versions of its search engine. CNIL has two months to bring its response.

This is a “no” firm and final. In a message posted on Thursday, Google says it has no intention to extend the right to the European oblivion to all versions of its site, as requested by CNIL since June 12 Sure to be within its rights despite the formal notice sent by the French authority of protection of privacy, Google remains stuck to his guns. European decisions apply to Europe and not beyond.

Since a judgment of the EU Court of Justice issued in May 2014, Europeans can ask the search engine remove links when the results are “inadequate, or no longer relevant or excessive”. Google has received some 290,000 applications, of which 60,000 in France, covering more than one million Internet addresses. Its teams will then charge to assess the relevance of the request, they can reject it.

The conflict between Google and the CNIL door on the perimeter withdrawals. When comply, the search engine removes the links on European versions of its pages (.fr, .es, .co.uk, etc.), and not on the global release (.com), and those of countries outside Europe. However, according to the French authorities, “the delisting to be effective, should cover all extensions.”

Google does not hear it that way. The search engine considers that such a provision would be “disproportionate and unnecessary.” Only 3% of French people search without using the local version of the engine, it should be recalled at Google. The measure would also not provide for the judgment and ECJ would be dangerous, since it would also lead to remove links in Europe, if the right to be forgotten were to be spent in other countries. This would result in a decline in freedom of expression online, Google fears that therefore wishes to withdraw the notice of the CNIL.

The French authority considers these arguments “for a share of political” and said that it relied on the contrary “on a strictly legal reasoning”. CNIL has two months to bring its response. Opening a litigation phase could lead to a search engine penalty under the “Data Protection” law. Google has already been convicted in the past for its information collection practices as part of its Street View program or about its privacy policy. CNIL had, however, every time, support in other European countries.