Global Litigator: Leave Me Alone! Europe’s “Right to Be Forgotten”

Download a printable PDF of this article.

On May 13, 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the European Union’s highest court, issued a decision that allows European nationals to ask search engines to take down links to webpages containing outdated, prejudicial, or embarrassing information about them. And in the first few days after the ruling, thousands of Europeans gratefully exercised their new derecho al olvido—the “right to be forgotten”—and asked Google to disable specific links. Let’s take a look at what the case was about.