Court case 200.254.914 – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2021)

On 22 May 2018, complainant, who is a writer, requested Google via a to remove ten search-results that appeared when someone would type in complainant's name via Google Search. The search-results refer to webpages that display a conflict between complainant and a literary critic, since the latter accused complainant of plagiarism and (the accompanying) unjustified use of academic titles. After Google rejected the request, complainant asked the District Court Midden-Nederland to order google to remove the references to the ten internet addresses on pain of a penalty payment. This Court decided that complainant insufficiently refuted Google's argument that the contested search results are correct, relevant and not excessive, and also because it has not been established that the processing takes longer than necessary. The Court furthermore ruled that the interest of Google and of internet users who may want to gain access to the search results prevails over the interest of complainant. Complainant appealed against this judgement. Before the Court decided on the legitimacy of the deletion request, it assessed whether the applicable legislative instrument is the GDPR, or the (Dutch) Personal Data Protection Act (Wbp). It asserted that the legal proceedings started on 25 May 2018, and Article 48(10) of the General Data Protection Implementing Act (UAVG) states that the Wbp continuous to apply to proceedings that were pending before 25 May 2018 (the date the GDPR entered into force). However, it concluded that the GDPR is the applicable legislative instrument in this case, since the request concerns a request for removal, in respect of which it must be assessed ex nunc whether the processing is (currently) in accordance with the applicable rules. Then, the Court stated that the request for deletion must be regarded as an appeal to Article 21(1) GDPR, and the Court must therefore conduct the balancing test. In this regard, it acknowledged that complainant had an inte