Thread by @finck_m

Today, AG Szpunar of the #ECJ suggested that the Court (which now has to decide this case) should limit the scope of the right to be forgotten to the EU.

Opinion seems so far only to be available in French. Overview and some thoughts below 👇

Here is an overview of the facts & questions in this case:
law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-b…

Reminder: this case involves the interpretation of the Data Protection Directive, not the GDPR!

The AG starts his opinion by suggesting that there should be only a 'European right to erasure'

@CNIL as well as the French, Italian and Austrian government had argued that when Google implements the right to erasure, it should do so on all domains worldwide to ensure the full and complete protection of data subjects (as the A29WP did in 2014).

Google, a number if amici curiae and the Commission, Irish, Greek Polish and governments had argued that such actions should be limited to the EU would violate public international law and set a precedent for the extraterritorial application of law online.

The AG states that while the radical, simple and clear nature of the global scope is appealing he isn't convinced by the argument as it only accounts for data protection, not other concerns. As a consequence he finds that searches operated outside the EU should not be affected.

The AG returns to Art 52(1) TEU to recall that EU law ordinarily only applies in the EU and considers that there are no extraordinary circumstances here that would justify an extraterritorial application of the RTBF (as is for instance the case in competition law)

The AG's central point is that fundamental rights must be balanced against other considerations such as the public's legitimate interests to access certain information (as the ECJ had done in Google Spain, the first case that engaged with the RTBF).

He agrees with the arguments others had made before that a global RTBF would send a 'fatal signal' for the extraterritorial application of laws to the Internet, which would enable other countries (you know who) to impose their censorship to the 'European Internet'.

Somewhat obscure to me is para 62. Here, he argues that while in this instance a global scope isn't justified it could very well be in others. Anyone have any thoughts on what he was thinking or where this may be justified? Or is this simply a sign of indecision?

Search engines are, however, required to use geo-blocking to make sure that the RTBF is fully and completely implemented. That means that someone using google.com (instead of google.fr etc) in the EU should not be able to access the search results.

Overall I think that his conclusions are the most sensible solution in this case, as I have argued here: law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-b…

Now, let's see if the Court agrees..... final judgment should be out within the next few months.