The Right To Be Forgotten: What Is It?

Many headlines have been generated by the CJEU's recent judgment in Google -v- González¹, the so-called "right to be forgotten" case.

What exactly did the CJEU decide and what are the practical results?

Background

In 2010, Mr González (a Spanish national living in Spain) complained to the Spanish data protection agency about the fact that when his name was entered into the Google search engine, the Google results would produce links to announcements concerning his bankruptcy in 1998 on the site of a national daily newspaper.

Mr González sought the removal of the links from the Google hits and the information on the newspaper's site.

While the data protection agency rejected Mr González's complaint against the newspaper, it upheld it against Google.  Google duly appealed the decision to the Spanish High Court, who then referred the matter to the CJEU.