EU Judgment in Case C-460/20 Google: Delisting of allegedly inaccurate content

Thursday 8th December 2022

Judgment in Case C-460/20 Google (Déréférencement d’un contenu prétendument inexact)

(Approximation of Laws)

Two executives of a group of investment companies have asked Google to dereference results in a search using their names that link to certain articles that criticize the group’s investment model. They argue that these articles contain inaccurate claims.

In addition, they asked Google to remove photos of them, displayed as thumbnails, from the list of results of an image search based on their names. This list only displayed the thumbnails as such, without including the context of the publication of the photos on the referenced webpage. In other words, the original context of the publication of the images was not indicated or otherwise visible when the thumbnails were displayed.

Google refused to comply with these requests, referring to the professional context of the articles and photos and arguing that it did not know whether the information contained in the articles was accurate or not.

The German Federal Court of Justice, hearing the case, asked the Court of Justice to interpret the General Data Protection Regulation, which governs, inter alia, the right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’), and the Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, read in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Background Documents C-460/20