Nicolas Rase & Kristof Van Quathem write:
On May 12, 2016, The French High Court (“Cour de Cassation”) rendered a short decision stating that the right to be forgotten does not supersede the freedom of press. In this case, two brothers took legal action against a famous French daily newspaper.
The two individuals requested that their respective names be removed from search results displayed by the newspaper’s website search engine (not a third party search engine such as Google Search or Bing). The newspaper’s search engine indexed a link to an article published in 2006 which reported on a sanction imposed by the Council of State on the two brothers.
The High Court ruled that requiring a media organisation to remove information contained in its articles (the names and surnames of individuals) from its archive or to limit access to such articles by de-indexing links from its search engine exceeds the restrictions that may be imposed on the freedom of press.
Read more on Covington & Burling Inside Privacy.