[Chapter-delegates] Right to be Forgotten

Tue Jul 29 01:37:50 PDT 2014

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Dear Richard,

Thanks for the comment and enlightening. I noticed that case, but it is 
hardly related to personal data protection. This case is about the 
French Criminal Code which related to the sale of prohibited goods in 
France. The order of "take-down" to Yahoo! for removing the information 
about the Nazi related articles cannot really equate to the issues in 
Google v AEPD. I guess I was too rush in saying it was the first case 
that the EU trying to extend its arm to organizations outside of the MS 
of the EU. It is probably the first time we see that it uses business 
activities conducted by an legal entity outside of the EU, with its 
subsidiary existed with a totally separate entity in a MS of the EU, to 
connect the "dots" to satisfy the test of "Establishment" under Article 
4(1)(a) of the Directive 95/46 for solving the territorial issue.

I have studied the judgement pretty thoroughly. Although it does mention 
the fundamental rights of persons under the Charter of Fundamental 
Rights of the EU which the Directive is mainly based on, but it was 
mainly referring to the right of privacy and the protection of personal 
data. It mentioned in para 97 of the judgement that the public interests 
should not overtake the fundamental rights of the data subject. To this, 
I am split in opinion. On one hand, I am very much pro-protection of 
personal privacy and data protection, but under narrowly defined 
conditions, this right can be forfeited by the data subject, such as 
committing a crime (I am not referring to any specific case here). The 
Court also made a note on that in their final point in the ruling that 
in comparision with the fundamental rights of the data subject to be 
"de-linked" or blocked from search results of his name and the economic 
interests of the search engine as well as the interests of the public, 
the fundamental rights of the data subject overrides. To me, the 
judgement seems to be avoiding the arguments between other fundamental 
rights such as freedom expression, press freedom, etc. It kind of leaves 
an open end that such right may be interfered depending on his roles in 
public life. So the right to privacy is not absolute. I guess I am 
simply saying the elaboration on its analysis of other fundamental 
rights is not clearly stated.

This case is far from being the end.

Cheers,

Chester

On 28/07/2014 2:56 PM, Richard Hill wrote:
> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(r) Pro*
> Dear Chester,
>
> When I read the judgement in question, I find that it did discuss the matter
> of balancing privacy rights versus other rights, and concluded that, in the
> particular case, the right to privacy prevailed.  Courts dealing with future
> cases will also have to balance the right to privacy with other rights.
>
> So I don't think that it is correct to say that the court did not address
> the issue of freedom of speech.
>
> And this is far from being the first case where a national judgement has
> extraterritorial effects.  The first such significant case was Licra vs
> Yahoo!, see
>
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
>
> Best,
> Richard
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Chapter-delegates
>> [mailto:chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org]On Behalf Of Chester
>> Soong
>> Sent: lundi, 28. juillet 2014 05:53
>> To: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
>> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Right to be Forgotten
>>
>>
>> *This message was transferred with a trial version of CommuniGate(r) Pro*
>> Hi Glenn and Christine,
>>
>> I think the article is fear in asking the questions of such privacy
>> rights from the users perspective in a technological world such as the
>> Internet. But there are two important legal issues that most of these
>> articles failed to bring up: The ruling or the judgement as a whole did
>> not address the right to freedom of speech, which is one of the
>> fundamental rights of their CF (Charter of Fundamental Rights) of the EU
>> and that serves also as the foundation of the Data Protection
>> Directives. It is why many people working in the privacy laws field
>> believe the judgment is troublesome. The other significant issue is that
>> this is the first case which the ECJ is "reaching out" with its
>> jurisdiction to organizations outside of the EU. The judgement made a
>> distinguishing definition between the roles Google Inc. and Google Spain
>> SL in the case, where Google Spain as a sales agent of Google Inc. So
>> even when Google Inc. doesn't have any presence in the EU, while it
>> relies on the revenue generated by Google Spain, it established a
>> connection between Google Inc. to the EU presence. This has a
>> significant effect for organizations, especially commercial entities,
>> who are doing business with EU citizens without any EU presence (or
>> think they don't have EU presence) may find themselves subject to the EU
>> Data Protection laws.
>>
>> My two cents.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>> Chester
>>
>> On 27/07/2014 9:39 PM, Christine Runnegar wrote:
>>> *This message was transferred with a trial version of
>> CommuniGate(r) Pro*
>>> Thanks for sharing this Glenn.
>>>
>>> And here is a link to the press release from the EU Article 29
>> Data Protection Working Party regarding the meeting with search
>> engine providers
>>>
>>>
> http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/article-29/press-material/press-
> release/art29_press_material/20140725_wp29_press_release_right_to_be_forgott
> en.pdf
>>
>> On 24 Jul 2014, at 7:18 pm, Glenn McKnight <mcknight.glenn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>> Interesting article on the  'Right to be forgotten' in Europe and Google
>>>
>>>
> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/24/google-hauled-in-by-europe
> -over-right-to-be-forgotten-reaction
>>>
>>>
>>> Glenn McKnight
>>>
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