[hugoroy]

This "crux" misses point 72 of the ruling which states that EU law does not prohibit national law from (a) finding a different balance between privacy and freedom of expression and, thus, from (b) requiring the de-listing of the relevant name-search result on all versions of the search engine (i.e. globally).

This ruling is not the end of the case -- this is the EU law's top court ruling -- the case now goes back to the French court, to decide.

[nicholsonpk]

>requiring the de-listing of the relevant name-search result on all versions of the search engine (i.e. globally).

I sure hope this gets turned down. I'm not ready for international law where courts ruling over 65 million people (French population) can enforce their laws worldwide. If a single nation has that power, what's stopping China from making Tienanmen Square unsearchable worldwide?

[ceejayoz]

> If a single nation has that power, what's stopping China from making Tienanmen Square unsearchable worldwide?

Nothing, and they're already doing that sort of thing in a variety of cases.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/business/china-social-cre...

"United, Delta and American received letters last year from Chinese aviation officials saying their social credit score could be hit unless their websites labeled Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan as part of China. Lower scores would lead to investigations, the possibility of frozen bank accounts, limitations on local employees’ movement and other punishments, according to a letter sent to United and seen by The New York Times."

[hugoroy]

I don't really think France's judges power really has an influence on what's stopping, or not stopping, China.

China is not waiting for this ruling to try to do just that. It's up to operators like Google to decide whether they want to do business in China or whether they prioritise human rights.

[eloff]

China could probably pull that off if they wanted to. The same way they made international companies rename Taiwan, including Air Canada, they could force search engines to erase Tiananmen Massacre references if they want to continue doing business in China. However, last I heard Google is blocked in China, so the company is one of very few to resist Chinese pressure. Is that still true?

[nicholsonpk]

If this were a ruling that said the results cannot be shown in France or in the EU then I would be okay with that. I think that individual countries should be able to apply laws in their jurisdiction. My problem is that they want to enforce this law worldwide.

Hypothetically, if EU law says their ruling applies worldwide and Google stops doing business in the EU, does that mean they would be exempted? Can they then show all results or does the EU still try to charge them with breaking their law?

Obviously that's a lot of ifs. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how this ruling would even work if they decide that it does apply to everyone.

[hugoroy]

> My problem is that they want to enforce this law worldwide

The point really is: how to protect or remedy against the privacy infringement felt by someone in France's jurisdiction? And what the EU Court is saying at point 72 is: EU law does not prohibit the French judge from finding that it is necessary to have a stringent measure, i.e. to order a search engine to really prevent infringement even if coming from outside the EU.

We live in a global, connected world. This goes both ways if you want effective protection of rights of individuals. The only concern here really is to protect an individual's right to have a bit of control over the information about themselves that are so easily made available by serach engines.

> Hypothetically, if EU law says their ruling applies worldwide and Google stops doing business in the EU, does that mean they would be exempted? Can they then show all results or does the EU still try to charge them with breaking their law?

The rules are different between the previous law and the GDPR. The GDPR will apply to a company which has no business in the EU, if the data processing activity relates to:

"(a) the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or "(b) the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union."

[AstralStorm]

This seems like an implementation and ratification bit, as the member country privacy laws are not yet harmonized.

Sounds like previous rulings on agricultural products which later became void as the countries matched the law.