Finally, Google Presents Itself Openly and Willingly

I can’t Google myself anymore, and therefore do I not exist anymore? After the European Court of Justice’s verdict on the right to be forgotten on the Internet, many questions have arisen.

The commentaries that surround this news set a milestone. “Google bows to European law” is how many articles about the search engine company’s reaction to the most recent verdict by the European Court of Justice on the “right to be forgotten” begin.

Lately, it has not always really been clear whether the global market leader in online searching, and with it, other data gold-diggers on either side of the Atlantic, care even a bit about European data protection.

However, this signal makes things perfectly clear now: From now on, Europeans can apply for the deletion of undesirable Google search results about themselves using a form that was uploaded to the Internet on Friday.

This measure is very honorable, and it appears that Google has understood. After the National Security Agency affair and growing unease in Europe over the trans-Atlantic free trade of data by Facebook “& Co,” this case is a message of hope for reaching an understanding — even in other, as yet unresolved, questions.

Among these questions is, for example, what happens to data from copies of passports that Google wants to see alongside each deletion request.

And then, there is also the still unresolved problem of the promotion of specific search results, with which Google, through its monopolizing position, gains financial advantages over its competition. It’s a problem that puts the very existence of European newspaper publishing companies in danger.

Data Protection and Freedom of Information

Google’s rapid response to the European Court of Justice’s verdict allows us to hope that these and other online misunderstandings can be resolved, and what’s more, using clear — European — legislative foundations. Part of this dialogue is also the argument to take the search engine giants seriously who argue against delicately constructed regulations in the sphere of the Internet.

That is to say, it is true that a young start-up company could, for example, hardly afford the costs of thousands of user requests for deletions. In this respect, polished data protection laws can have thoroughly counterproductive effects because they cement the market power of the already large companies while erecting insurmountable barriers for innovations and start-up businesses.

Another argument from the critics of the European Court of Justice’s verdict cannot be dismissed either: The “right to be forgotten” must not become a “right to conceal.” The protection of personal information is as equally valuable an asset as freedom of information.

The most pressing task for the national legislator in Europe is therefore to flank the European Court of Justice’s ruling in the liberal sense with clear criteria, criteria that eliminate misuse and leave freedom all the imaginable space in case of doubt: every freedom we require, indeed, on this and the other side of the Atlantic.