SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION 8. Application of the “Costeja” Doctrine The leading case on the “right to be forgotten” was the Costeja case of 2014. The decision served as an important precedent for courts around the world, facing claims to remove or to de-index certain information following the criteria set by the CJEU. Many of these cases follow a similar pattern: old news items re-emerge, either in the context of the digitalization of news archives or when they were broadcasted. People affected by those news coverage often complained. For instance, in Venditti v. Rai, the Italian Supreme Court held that the rebroadcasting of a video about a famous songwriter five years after it was taken was unlawful and the artist’s right not to be misrepresented outweighed the right of the public to be informed. Antonelli Venditti had issued proceedings against Italy’s main broadcaster, RAI, claiming damages for the unlawful use of his image, the violation of his “right to be forgotten” and the defamatory nature of comments included in the broadcasted video. Relying on the jurisprudence of the CJEU and national courts, the Court listed factors to be considered in determining whether the “right to be forgotten” prevailed over the right to inform. It reasoned that the content of the video and the way in which it was disseminated, some five years after the event took place and as part of a TV show ranking the most obnoxious celebrities, was neither relevant for public debate nor justified by reasons of justice, public security, or of scientific or educational interest. The Court further reasoned that the comments added to the images could not be justified as satire which is dependent on a specific context, for example, for the purpose In Spain, the Civil Chamber of of social or political criticism, and must not result in the Supreme Court of Spain an unjustified attack on a specific person, in this case, the denigration of an artist in order to represent him as sustained the plaintiff’s claim a person who was always unfriendly. against Google in the case of Don Alfonso v. Google Spain, based on a link that refered to a crime for which he had been pardoned in 1981. In Spain, the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Spain sustained the plaintiff’s claim against Google in the case of Don Alfonso v. Google Spain, based on a link that refered to a crime for which he had been pardoned in 1981. Alonso claimed that the inaction to remove such information went against his right to privacy and negatively affected his reputation, causing him personal and economic distress. The Court agreed and held that due to the reasonable passage of time since his conviction and given that he was not a public figure, his right to privacy and honor outweighed the public’s right to information. In Germany, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg held that operators of online newspaper archives had an obligation to de-index certain articles from search results of a person’s name, just as search engine providers do following the CJEU judgment in Google Spain. The case concerned Plaintiff X, who requested that four articles about past criminal proceedings against him be taken down, modified or de-indexed since they were outdated and harmed his right to privacy. The Hamburg Regional Court refused to order that the articles be taken down or modified, citing freedom of the press. However, with regard to de-indexing, the Hamburg Regional Court reasoned that a balance must be struck between the right to privacy and 24