There is no "right to be forgotten" by search engines, says top EU court advisor

The senior advisor to Europe's top court said Tuesday that Google is not responsible for third party information in its search results and that there is no general "right to be forgotten" under the current data protection laws.

In a formal opinion to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Advocate General Niilo J��skinen wrote that search engine service providers are not responsible, on the basis of the current Data Protection Directive, for personal data appearing on web pages they process.

When the Directive was adopted in 1995, Internet search engines were a new phenomenon and, according to J��skinen, their current role as de facto gatekeepers to the Internet could not have been foreseen by the legislators. He says that, as such, Google cannot be considered a 'controller' of personal data under the rules as they were established nearly 20 years ago.

It therefore follows that national data protection authorities cannot require a search engine to remove information from its index. J��skinen adds that rights to rectification, erasure or blocking of data only apply if there is incomplete, inaccurate, libellous or criminal information.

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2042924/there-is-no-universal-right-to-be-forgotten-says-top-eu-court-advisor.html#tk.rss_all

MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES LSI LINEAR TECHNOLOGY . LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL