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Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
8-1
Author’s Teaching Note by Cynthia E. Clark
Case Synopsis:
In July 2010, the Spanish Data Protection Agency ordered Google Spain
and Google Inc. to remove the personal data of Mario Costeja Gonzalez
from its index and preclude further access to it, ushering in the right
to be forgotten in Europe. This right was not only in contrast to the
freedom of speech in the U.S. but of Google’s own mission. Google Inc.,
was a technology company that built products and provides services to
Discussion Questions:
1. Do you believe an individual should have the right to be
forgotten, that is, to remove information about themselves from
the Internet? If so, should this right be limited, and if so,
how?
2. How does public policy, with respect to individual privacy,
differ in the the United States and Europe, and what explains
these differences?
Discussion Questions & Answers:
1. Do you believe an individual should have the right to be
forgotten, that is, to remove information about themselves from
the Internet? If so, should this right be limited, and if so,
how?
Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
8-2
The right to be forgotten can be understood as peoples’ right to
request that information be removed from the Internet, or other
repositories because it violated their privacy or was no longer
relevant.
In Europe, limitations to the right to be forgotten stemmed
mainly from the global nature of the Internet. For example, the
case states that Google was only required to apply removals to
2. How does public policy with respect to individual privacy differ
in the United States and Europe, and what explains these
differences?
Fundamental differences in legal philosophy made this right less
likely to become widely supported in the United States than in
Europe. In Spain and the twenty-eight member states, the right to
privacy has become a Constitutional right. In the U.S. this was
Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
8-3
3. In what ways has technology made it more difficult for
individuals to protect their privacy?
Technology is ubiquitous, and consumers often do not know when,
how, and if a company is using their data. As the case describes,
the ease with which information could be shared, stored, and
retrieved through online search—as only one example—raised issues
of both privacy and freedom of expression. Also, when opening a
4. Do you think Google should be responsible for modifying its
search results in response to individual requests? If so, what
criteria should it use in doing so? Are there limits to the
resources the company should be expected expend to comply with
such requests?
Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
The case introduces some of the controversies in assigning this
responsibility to Google. Much of this controversy centered
on whether a private company based search engine should
On the other hand, Google is attempting to be transparent about
its process. It provides a tally of some of the requests—over two
million requests as of March 2015. Students may mention a number
of criteria that the advisory council report suggested using when
deciding what information to remove. These include:
• Consider the data subject’s role in public life. Did the
individuals have a clear role in public life (CEOs,
politicians, sports stars)?
• Consider the type of information involved. Information that
would normally be considered private (such as financial
information, details of a person’s sex life, or identification
Google had put in place a team of people to address removals and
students should consider whether this expense and resource allocation
should be borne by the company or another party or parties—the European
Union, individuals, governments—given that it is an EU law imposed on a
U.S. firm. The limits to the resources Google is willing to pay
directly relates to one of the text’s axioms—that when one has a right,
it’s necessary to consider who bears the responsibility for that right.
Even with Google’s vast wealth, there should be a limit to the
Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
8-5
responsibility it bears for this law. The responsibility thus far has
been borne solely by Google.
If you were a Google executive, how would you balance the privacy
rights of the individual with the public’s interest to know and the
right to distribute information?
Students will provide a wide range of answers to this question.
Chapters 11 and 14 discuss privacy rights and students should be
encouraged to use this information. In March 2015, President Barack
Obama attempted to create a privacy act that defined “personal data” in
Epilogue:
In March 2015, President Barack Obama issued an Administration
Discussion Draft called the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights Act of
2015. Its purpose was to establish baseline protections for individual
privacy in the commercial arena and to foster timely, flexible
implementations of these protections through enforceable codes of
conduct developed by diverse stakeholders. This draft made an attempt
Case 8
Google and the Right to be Forgotten
Google has complied with the ruling, but only for European domain names
and not Google.com, as the case notes. In June 2015, the French data
protection regulator, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des
Libertés, or CNIL, issued a formal order to Google to begin applying
the right to be forgotten removals to all domain names of the search
engine globally, including Google.com, not just those that are aimed at
Europe, such as google.fr.
