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Data protection: BGH rules on the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet

Data protection: BGH rules on the “right to be forgotten” on the Internet

You can always find old stories online – regardless of whether they are true. This can be very uncomfortable for those affected. Now it is decided when search engine operators have to delete the hits.

It’s about the so-called right to be forgotten on the Internet: The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) wants to announce today when those affected have a right to Google removing questionable articles about them from its hit lists. The Karlsruhe judges are likely to follow a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), according to which the search engine operator is not obliged to actively search for critical articles.

The person concerned must therefore prove for himself that the information about him is obviously incorrect. If he succeeds, Google must remove the links to the content in question. The sixth civil senate at the BGH must now apply these specifications to the specific case.

Targeted negative reports?

It’s about a couple in the financial services industry who find themselves discredited on the internet. The plaintiffs want several critical articles about their investment model to no longer appear as hits when you search for their names on Google.

A US website had published the texts. Its operator was in turn accused of specifically launching negative reports in order to blackmail those affected. Google did not remove the links to the articles. The reason given was that it was not possible to judge whether there was anything to the allegations.

The Cologne Higher Regional Court ruled in 2018 that Google may continue to display most of the texts in question. The plaintiffs failed to demonstrate an obvious violation of rights in the required manner. The presiding judge at the BGH, Stephan Seiters, indicated in the oral hearing at the end of April that this is probably in line with the ECJ requirements for the Senate.

ECJ was consulted

The fact that the Luxembourg judges dealt with the issue also goes back to the proceedings: the BGH had already dealt with the case in 2020. Because there are uniform standards for data protection across the EU, the Senate consulted the ECJ.

In particular, Germany’s top civil court judges wanted to know whether Google would have to conduct its own investigations in such cases – with the risk that it might be better to block one report than one too few. The Luxembourg decision on this has been available since December 2022.

At the oral hearing in April, there was a longer discussion about small preview images (“thumbnails”), which appear next to links in the hit list in Google searches. The plaintiffs defend themselves against certain images from an article that show them, among other things, in a convertible or during a helicopter flight – allegedly proof that “backers and initiators” would indulge in luxury.

Here, the Google lawyers insisted that the motifs should not be deleted in general, but only if they are stored with the link to the article in question. A total ban is not legal because it forces Google to actively filter.

Source: Stern

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