BIANCARDI v. ITALY JUDGMENT decision of 28 March 2012, the court excluded Google Italy S.r.l. from the proceedings following V.X.’s withdrawal of his claim against this party. 11. By a decision of 16 January 2013, the District Court of Chieti observed at the outset that, in the light of the information that the applicant had supplied on 23 May 2011, there was no need to examine the part of V.X.’s complaint regarding the request for the article to be removed from the Internet. 12. As for the remainder of the complaint, concerning the breach of the claimants’ right to respect for their reputation, the court awarded to each claimant 5,000 euros (EUR) in compensation for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 2,310 for costs and expenses. 13. The court referred to the applicable legislation on the matter – namely, Articles 7, 11, 15 and 25 of the Personal Data Protection Code. It noted in particular that the information concerning the claimants had been published on 29 March 2008 and had remained accessible on the Internet until 23 May 2011, notwithstanding V.X.’s formal notice to the applicant asking that the article in question be removed from the Internet (see paragraph 8 above). In the court’s view, the public interest in the right to provide information had then been satisfied and, at least from the date of V.X. sending the above-mentioned formal notice, the processing of his personal data had not been in compliance with Articles 11 and 15 of the Personal Data Protection Code. The court then concluded that there had been a breach of the claimants’ reputation and right to respect for their private life. The court also noted that the information at issue was easily accessible (much more than any information published in print newspapers, taking into account the large local dissemination of the online newspaper at issue) by simply inserting the claimants’ names into the search engine, and that the nature of the relevant data, as regards judicial proceedings, was sensitive. 14. The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law; by a judgment of 24 June 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the first-instance decision on all grounds and dismissed the applicant’s appeal. The Supreme Court noted that the processing of the plaintiffs’ personal data had been unlawful inasmuch as the article, published on 29 March 2008, had remained accessible on the Internet, despite the above-mentioned formal notice sent (to the applicant asking that the article in question be removed from the Internet) by V.X. on 6 September 2010, and that the possibility to access the article had been easy and direct. The Supreme Court excluded the possibility that in this case the unlawfulness of the way in which the personal data had been processed had been linked either to the content of the said article, to its online publication and dissemination, or to its conservation and digital archiving. 3