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A few comments/explanations on that ruling:

1. It is not the end of the case -- this ruling is from the European Union law's top court (the CJEU) to give the ultimate interpretation of European Union law on the topic.

2. The case now goes back to France, where the French judge will decide, taking into account both EU law and French law, whether the Data Protection Authority's (CNIL) ruling against Google was correct or not. The most crucial point that most media reports miss is that the CJEU ruling states clearly that French courts are not prohibited from ordering a global de-listing of all versions of Google, if the protection of privacy requires so (Point 72 of the ruling).

3. The CJEU ruling restates many points from its 2014 ruling against Google Inc (US) and Google Spain - i.e. this is about an individual's right to remove certain results from the list of results based on the individual's name. It is not a right to remove content per se, nor is it a right to remove results entirely (i.e. the de-listed results should be searchable through any other search query)

4. As in 2014, the Court rules that as a general rule/principle, the individual's right to opt-out prevails over the public's freedom to access search results -- but this is not absolute, and the other way around may be true depending on the circumstances (e.g. if the result is particularly relevant for the public's interest). [This "general rule" is the part of the ruling which I find most open to criticism, as in my opinion this is not what the law provides]

5. This ruling is based on law before the GDPR. While the GDPR will continue to apply this mutatis mutandis as we say, this ruling has nothing to do directly with GDPR.



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