Google LLC – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

Claimants 1 and 2 are entrepreneurs who are or have been active in the real estate market. They are married. Claimant 1 still operates at least one company that does development and sales of new buildings. Claimant 2 used to run a house rental agency, but not anymore. When the names of claimant 1 and claimant 2 are entered in Google search, the search results show links to sites and TV shows featuring both claimants and their way of running business in the negative light. In July 2019, during the preliminary relief proceedings the producer of one of the shows was ordered by the Court to add a rectification notice because some statements in the show did not have enough factual support. The Court, however, did not agree with the claimants that the removal of the show was justified. Similarly, the Netherlands Press Council also partially agreed with the claimants, finding that the reporting published on one of the sites did contain unsubstantiated accusations, hurtful language and insufficient consideration of the claimants’ side of the story. However, the Council found that careless journalistic conduct did not take place. Claimants submitted several “right to be forgotten” requests to Google to have specific links removed from the search results. Google rejected those requests. Claimants brought two cases before the Court. According to claimant 1, 18 URLs must be forgotten in case 19-64 and 24 URLs in case 20-22. Claimant 2 is asking to de-list 21 URLs in case 20-22. The Court considers both cases jointly. Claimants are of the opinion that a data subject in principle has a right to have his or her personal data deleted from search engine. It is then up to the search engine provider to prove that there are valid reasons for not deleting the information. According to the claimants, the balance of interests is in their favor in this case as the links they would like to have de-listed contain a lot of inaccuracies. Moreover, the information published on those pa