The advocate general of the European Court of Justice has advised that Google cannot be held liable for content posted by third parties on the internet that may infringe another party's privacy rights. The opinion was requested in a Spanish court case where a person asked the national data protection regulator to force Google to remove from its search results an old legal notice on recovery of outstanding debts that was published by a newspaper. Under the current EU e-Privacy directive, Google would have to be considered the "controller" of the information to be held responsible for compliance with data privacy regulations. However, the advocate general found this was not the case, as Google merely indicates the location of the information, not its content. Furthermore, the current directive does not include any "right to be forgotten" that could force the removal of the information by a national data protection regulator. This right is notably part of the current discussions on reforming the ePrivacy directive, which dates from almost 20 years ago. The advocate general's opinion is not binding on the court's final ruling in the case.
