SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Conclusion The “right to be forgotten” is undoubtedly an innovation in the legal landscape around the world. It is a true child of the Internet: it first emerged as a claim made by individuals who considered themselves affected and harmed by the re-emergence of old information made available by this network of networks, that somehow brought to the present time old deeds they wished to forget. These claims emerged as a direct consequence of the Internet as a technology that makes possible easy access to digital archives. In the contexts of the digitalization of old news archives, of public records, or old TV shows once broadcasted and now made available online, these claims questioned some of the unexpected social consequences of these technological developments. Courts were asked—then—to place limits upon this phenomenon. Some courts refused to do so, and considered that the freedom of expression interests involved in the Internet, including the democratization of access to information implied by digital technology, clearly outweighed the reputational or privacy concerns involved. But, as this document has shown, many courts struck a different balance. Many have considered that personal data protection schemes can be used to place a limit to the social process through which information is made easily available. To an extent, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has embraced this approach advanced first by the CJEU in the Costeja case. The rise of the “right to be forgotten” and the litigation patterns that has led in many countries to its judicial recognition poses a challenge to freedom of expression. In particular, a broad recognition of the “right to be forgotten” threatens one of the most fundamental promises of the Internet: to make access to information easier and simpler for the whole world. By placing limits and restrictions on the social processes through which information is recovered and made available (e.g., to the digitalization of old records and their indexation by search engines) the “right to be forgotten” aligns itself with other mechanisms that have, in the past, attempted to control these processes (such as e.g., copyright claims, invoked to prevent among other things the digitalization of library stocks). The challenge ahead seems relevant and can be put in the following way: how to acknowledge the harms produced by the increasingly easy availability of personal information on the web while, at the same time, maintaining the promise of informational democracy implied in the technology. In meeting this challenge, judges around the world must be aware of the stakes involved and how their colleagues in others countries have struck a balance between the competing interests involved in “right to be forgotten” claims. 28