Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 24 September 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil d’État — France) — Google LLC, successor in law to Google Inc. v Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL)
(Case C-507/17) 1
(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Personal data — Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of such data — Directive 95/46/EC — Regulation (EU) 2016/679 — Internet search engines — Processing of data on web pages — Territorial scope of the right to de-referencing)
Language of the case: French
Referring court
Conseil d’État
Parties to the main proceedings
Applicant: Google LLC, successor in law to Google Inc.
Defendant: Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL)
In the presence of: Wikimedia Foundation Inc., Fondation pour la liberté de la presse, Microsoft Corp., Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Others, Article 19 and Others, Internet Freedom Foundation and Others, and Défenseur des droits
Operative part of the judgment
On a proper construction of Article 12(b) and subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and of Article 17(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46 (General Data Protection Regulation), where a search engine operator grants a request for de-referencing pursuant to those provisions, that operator is not required to carry out that de-referencing on all versions of its search engine, but on the versions of that search engine corresponding to all the Member States, using, where necessary, measures which, while meeting the legal requirements, effectively prevent or, at the very least, seriously discourage an internet user conducting a search from one of the Member States on the basis of a data subject’s name from gaining access, via the list of results displayed following that search, to the links which are the subject of that request.
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1 OJ C 347, 16.10.2017.