SPECIAL COLLECTION OF THE CASE LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION freedom of expression, particularly at a time when information is easily and permanently accessible online. The Hamburg Regional Court balanced the two interests by ruling that operators of an online archive could only be obliged to de-index articles from search results following appropriate notice from the person concerned. And in Communications Consultant v. Süddeutsche Zeitung, 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-indexed 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 CJEU in the “Google case”, there was all the more reason for them to be brought against the original provider of such content. The passing of time plays a substantial role in the reasoning behind Costeja, and courts around the world who had embraced the precedent had highlighted that point. In Plaintiff X v. PrimaDaNoi, the Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy held that the “public interest” in an article diminished after two and a half years and that sensitive and private information should not be available to the public indefinitely. The case concerned an individual who was involved in a criminal incident in 2008 and in 2010 demanded an online newspaper, PrimaDaNoi, to take down an article describing the 2008 incident. The newspaper initially rejected his request, but complied six months later. However, the individual still sought compensation for the newspaper’s failure to comply with his request for six months. Relying on the EU Guidelines created after the Google Spain decision, the Court found that although the article was published lawfully, it satisfied its public interest purpose and allowing access to it disproportionately impacted the individual’s privacy. A case in Mexico dealt not with news items, but with services that gather personal data available on the Interent—pressumably from publicly available sources—and make it available on the Internet, often for a fee. In Anonymous Applicant v. Google Mexico, the Mexican Federal Institute of Access to Information and Protection of Data (FIAIPD) ordered Google Mexico to de-index certain URLs from the Google Mexico search engine and delete personal data relating to an individual from its databases. It also ordered the initiation of proceedings for the imposition of sanctions against Google Mexico. The order was based on a request from an individual who claimed that a search of his name on a Google Mexico search engine provided links to URLs that disclosed his name, the name of his (deceased) father, the names of his brothers, and information pertaining to his business activities. Citing the CJEU decision Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzalez, the FIAIPD concluded that enabling the public to find someone’s private information through an online search engine was a form of data processing, and that Google Mexico was responsible for the processing of the applicant’s personal data in these circumstances, despite Google Mexico’s contention that the search engine was run by Google Inc. in the United States. 25