03/02/2020 Details of 2016 (Kyo) 45 | Judgments of the Supreme Court provides information satisfying certain conditions provided by users as search results based on such index. Although these processes of collecting, organizing and providing information are implemented automatically by a computer program, because the program was designed to retrieve results that are in line with the search service provider’s policy for the provision of search results, the provision of search results carries the nature of an act of expression by the search service provider. The provision of search results by the search service provider also plays an important role in current society as a foundation for distribution of information on the Internet by helping the public in distributing information on the Internet and in collecting necessary information from a huge volume of information therein. If an act by the search service provider to provide certain search results is recognized as illegal, and the deletion of such search results is then forced, this means not only that the act of expression consistent with the abovementioned policy will be restricted but also that the abovementioned role played by it in providing search results will be restricted as well. Considering the nature of the act of the search service provider to provide such search results as described above, whether an act of the search service provider to provide, at the request of users to perform a search using conditions relating to a certain person, the URLs and other information of websites on which articles or the like that contain facts related to the privacy of a certain person as a part of the search result is illegal or not should be determined by comparing and considering the legal interest of such facts not being published and various situations related to the reasons for providing such URLs and other information as results of the search, including the nature and contents of such facts, the range in which such facts are communicated and the extent of concrete damage suffered by such person by the provision of such URLs and other information, the social position and power of influence of such person, the purpose and meaning of such articles, the social situation when the articles were posted and subsequent changes, and the need to include such facts in the articles. Considering www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=1511 5/7