In March 2010, Spanish national Costeja González brought a complaint before the country’s Data Protection Agency against La Vanguardia newspaper, Google Spain, and Google Inc. González wanted the newspaper to remove or alter the record of his 1998 attachment and garnishment proceedings so that the information would no longer be available through Internet search engines. He also requested Google Inc. or its subsidiary, Google Spain, to remove or conceal the data. González argued that the proceedings had been fully resolved for several years and therefore they should no longer appear online. The Agency dismissed the complaint against the newspaper on the ground that the publication was legally justified pursuant to a government order. It, however, upheld the complaint against Google, finding that Internet search engines are also subject to data protection laws and must take necessary steps to protect personal information.
On appeal, the National High Court of Spain stayed the proceedings and presented a number of questions to the European Court of Justice concerning the applicability of the EU Directive 95/46 (protection of personal data) to the Internet search engines. The Court ruled that a search engine is regarded as a “controller” with respect to “processing” of personal data through its act of locating, indexing, storing, and disseminating such information. Additionally, it held that in order to guarantee the rights of privacy and the protection of personal data, operators of search engines can be required to remove personal information published by third party websites. But the data subject’s right to make that request must be balanced against the interest of the general public to access his or her personal information.