Communications Consultant v. Süddeutsche Zeitung
Case Law- Country
- Country Location
Latitude: 51.168768345617636
Longitude: 10.094236493110516
- Country Location (linked Case Law)
- Germany
- Decision Date
- Jul 7, 2015
- Case Status
- Decision Pending
- Case Outcome (Procedural)
- Affirmed in Part/Reversed in Part
- Case Outcome (Disposition)
- Access Restriction/Content Regulation/Information Control
- Keywords
- Right to be Forgotten
- Judicial Body
- Appellate Court
- Case Number
- 7 U 29/12
- Case Summary
The Oberlandesgericht Hamburg (Higher Regional Court of Hamburg) upheld the right to be forgotten and found that the Plaintiff had a right to be de-indexing from online articles, so that they wouldn’t appear in results of searches against his name. The Plaintiff had asked the Respondent newspaper to remove from its online archive articles that referred to criminal proceedings against him that had been dismissed on payment of a fine several years ago. The Court reasoned that deleting or changing the articles would infringe the Respondent’s constitutional right to freedom of the press but that the Plaintiff's right to privacy would be infringed if the criminal proceedings could permanently be found by searching for his name on the website of a search engine. It reasoned further that if claims to delink certain content could be brought against search engines, as had been decided by the European Court of Justice in the “Google case” , there was all the more reason for them to be brought against the original provider of such content.
- Case Significance
The decision establishes a binding or persuasive precedent within its jurisdiction.
- Related Caselaw (self)
- Source URL
- Columbia Global Freedom of Expression