MR JUSTICE WARBY
Approved Judgment
NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC
Mr Justice Warby :
INTRODUCTION
1.
These two claims are about the “right to be forgotten” or, more accurately, the right to
have personal information “delisted” or “de-indexed” by the operators of internet
search engines (“ISEs”).
2.
The claimants are two businessmen who were convicted of criminal offences many
years ago. The defendant, (“Google”), needs little introduction. It operates an ISE
called Search which has returned and continues to return search results that feature
links to third-party reports about the claimants’ convictions. The claimants say that
the search results convey inaccurate information about their offending. Further, and in
any event, they seek orders requiring details about their offending and their
convictions and sentences to be removed from Google Search results, on the basis that
such information is not just old, but out of date, and irrelevant, of no public interest,
and/or otherwise an illegitimate interference with their rights. They also seek
compensation for Google’s conduct in continuing to return search results disclosing
such details, after the claimants’ complaints were made. Google resists both claims,
maintaining that the inclusion of such details in its search results was and remains
legitimate.
3.
This public judgment is given after the trial of both claims. In this judgment the
claimants are anonymised, for reasons which will probably be obvious from this short
summary of the cases, but are explained in more detail in judgments given at the PreTrial Reviews: [2018] EWHC 67 (QB) (“the First PTR Judgment”) and [2018]
EWHC 261 (QB) (“the Second PTR Judgment”). In short, anonymity is required to
ensure that these claims do not give the information at issue the very publicity which
the claimants wish to limit. Other individuals and organisations have been given false
names in this judgment for the same reason: to protect the identities of the claimants.
4.
I have prepared a separate, private judgment in each case containing details that may
be important to help the parties and any Court that has to review this case in future,
but which tend to identify the claimants. The contents of the private judgments may
not be published. That is because, whatever the outcome of these claims, it is not
necessary or proportionate for the Court to place on the public record personal data
which either is or may at some stage become private, and which in any event is not so
generally accessible that the Court should proceed on the basis that its judgment can
add nothing to the impact on the claimant. Cf L v The Law Society [2010] EWCA Civ
811 [2] (Sir Anthony Clarke MR).
THE CASES IN A NUTSHELL
5.
The essential facts of NT1’s case are that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he
was in his thirties, he was involved with a controversial property business that dealt
with members of the public. In the late 1990s, when he was in his forties, he was
convicted after a trial of a criminal conspiracy connected with those business
activities, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He was accused of but, never
tried for, a separate conspiracy connected with the same business, of which some of
its former staff were convicted. There was media reporting of these and related
matters at that time. Links to that reporting were made available by Google Search, as