HURBAIN v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS E. Should alternative means have been given precedence in the present case? 28. Lastly, the present judgment considers some alternatives to the anonymisation order complained of (see paragraphs 240 to 254 of the judgment). This issue cannot be dealt with in a theoretical manner. It must be addressed in the light of the actual and specific context of the dispute brought before the domestic courts, taking into account the facts which they were called on to examine, the requests made before them by the parties and their own powers. 29. Thus, instead of focusing on the applicant, should G. have directed his complaint against the search engines? I hear the argument that in a case such as the present one priority should be given to taking action against the search engine operators3. However, there is no need to discuss this issue since we learn from the case file that the applicant himself contacted Google Belgium on three occasions (by letters of 29 December 2010, and 24 January and 23 February 2011) prior to the commencement of the domestic court proceedings, without success (see paragraph 16 of the present judgment). G. therefore had good grounds for believing that a request for delisting was bound to fail. 30. The applicant’s representatives argued before the Court that another alternative to anonymisation existed, in the form of the de-indexing of the article, and stressed that this alternative had not been considered by the Belgian courts although it was less detrimental to freedom of the press than anonymisation. However, it must be observed that the applicant had opposed de-indexing in the domestic court proceedings and made no such request before the Court of Appeal, despite being the appellant in those proceedings. Hence, I do not see how the Court of Appeal can be criticised for not applying a measure which the applicant had deemed not to be appropriate and which had not been requested in the proceedings before it. F. Conclusion 31. In view of all the foregoing, I agreed with the majority of my colleagues that there had been no “strong reasons” (see paragraph 11 above) permitting the Court to substitute its own view for that of the domestic courts in balancing the rights guaranteed by Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention in the present case. This still leaves the question as to which ones exactly? Only Google or also others? And if so, which others? 3 93