The Yahoo’s Nazi Memorabilia case fought between the French and the US jurisdictional issues had remained so far a landmark judgement on application of Jurisdiction involving websites that can be viewed across the borders. Finally that case upheld the jurisdiction of the US courts to determine what Yahoo Inc can do outside France on websites which are not in French language and therefore not directed specifically to the French citizens.
Now the judgement of the EU Court in respect of the exercise of “Right to be Forgotten” to be extended outside EU has been correctly struck down and provides the much needed clarity in the application of EU laws outside the EU region. In particular, the GDPR watchers would find some relief in this judgement.
At present our comments are based on news paper reports and we reserve our comments when the detailed order is studied. For immediate reference, we refer to the article in moneycontrol.com titled “Google wins case over reach of EU right to be forgotten”
According to the report, the EU Court of justice has said
“…There is no obligation under EU law for a search engine operator to extend the rule beyond the EU States”
In a manner of satisfying its ego, the Court has also said that the search engine operator must put measures in place to “Discourage” internet users from going outside the EU to find that information. This needs to be ignored because if the Court admits lack of jurisdiction in the first place to apply the law, it lacks jurisdiction to advise and set guidelines for the operations of organizations outside EU.
During the last one year, many citizens of EU have been harassing companies in other countries including India with notices related to GDPR. Now these trouble makers should realize that there is a limit to the extra territorial jurisdiction of EU and it cannot infringe on the sovereignty of other countries.
This judgement should put a stop to all such arguments.
Naavi
