Europe’s highest court on Tuesday stunned the U.S. tech industry by recognizing an expansive right to privacy that allows citizens to demand that Google delete links to embarrassing personal information — even if it’s true.
The ruling has potentially wide-ranging consequences for an industry that reaps billions of dollars in profit by collecting, sorting and redistributing data touching on the lives of people worldwide. That includes more than 500 million people in the European Union who now could unleash a flood of deletion requests that Google would have little choice but to fulfill, no matter how cumbersome.
The impact on American users was not immediately clear, though companies sometimes seek to adopt uniform policies around the world to simplify compliance. Other U.S.-based tech companies, includingFacebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo, have services that feature information about private citizens and may have to alter their practices in Europe to comply with the precedent set by the Google ruling, legal experts said. The ruling may also inspire similar legal challenges elsewhere in the world.
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