Google face Spanish data protection agency in court

 

Lawyers attended court in Madrid last week on behalf of Google. Spanish authorities have demanded that the company deletes links to websites which contains information that could violate certain privacy rights.

The Spanish Data Protection Agency has said how, at the request of induviduals, it has filed over 90 orders against Google for links to be removed because the original publishers of the material cannot legally be ordered to remove them.

Spain's National Court yesterday heard from both parties on the first of such five orders to be appealed. These initial cases include a surgeon who was absolved of charges of negligence in a 1991 case, but who sees a Spanish newspaper reference to the original case - and not the acquittal - whenever his name is 'Googled'. Another case involves a woman who was denied a local government grant years ago but reference to her grant application keeps appears when her name is 'Googled'.

Google is concerned that a ruling against them could set a precedent, which essentially makes them accountable for all of the material which it provides on the Internet. The legal team representing Google argued that the data agency had not called on any of the news providers to either delete this content or change it in any way.