Google France – Court Ruling (France, 2025)

A dentist (the data subject) found a listing of her on Google My Business (GMB) in 2017, which included personal data, reviews and ratings related to her professional activity. The data subject requested Google France to delete the reviews and remove the reviews function from her listing. After a refusal from Google France and Google LLC, the data subject brought a case to the Chambéry regional court. This court ordered in 2019 Google France, Google LLC and Google Ireland to disclose the authors of the negative reviews. After being unable to remove half of the negative reviews, the data subject brought a request for interim relief to the Paris Regional Court in order to delete the listing. This was refused, and the data subject brought the request to delete to the Court of Chambéry. In 2022 this Court stated that the Google companies did not have a legitimate interest in processing the data subject’s data without her consent. Google had also not complied with the principles of fairness and transparency. Finally, the Court ordered the Google companies to delete the data subject’s listing on GMB. The Google companies were also jointly liable for non-material and procedural damages. The Google companies appealed the case the same year. The Google companies argued that the processing was justified by the legitimate interest of providing users with the means to evaluate professionals and receive information about their work. Furthermore, Google France argued that the case was inadmissible, as it was not involved in the Google services in question. The data subject argued that Google France operates the services based on case law Google Spain, and requested the Court of appeal to uphold the reasoning of the previous Court. The Court first stated that Google France did not have standing in this case, as it was not the operator of the search engine or the owner of the www.google.fr domain. According to the Court, the terms of service refer to Google Ireland, and the corre