“The so-called search engine judgment from the European Court of Justice results in no de facto right to be forgotten, but rather merely a right to hide,” said eco Director of Policy and Law Oliver Süme today in the discussion round “Tension between data protection and freedom of information and opinion” organized by the German Federal Ministry for the Interior and the Herthie School of Governance. In his opinion, the judgment is unsatisfactory, because it may lead, on the one hand, to the deletion of links to content from the index of search engines, while at the same time the content remains available on the websites of the actual operator. In its verdict from 13.05.2014, the ECJ decided that search engine operators such as Google can be obligated to delete references to websites if they contain sensitive personal data.
“Such a verdict could also torpedo the liability regime laid down in the E-Commerce Directive,” Süme fears, and instead he recommends a stretching of the co-called “media privilege” to the new digital media providers. “In this point, the Data Protection Act must be revised to reflect the changed media landscape,” said Süme.