Google Spain: Addressing Critiques and Misunderstandings One Year Later

Abstract

In the text that follows the authors will rst highlight some subjectively important facts that need to be kept under consideration while assessing the Court’s decision against the business model currently employed by US internet companies (section 1). In section 2 the authors will engage with Sartor’s concerns with regard to search engines being classi ed as ‘data controllers’. Section 3 will deal with the issue of extraterritoriality, attempting to assess both Wolf’s reservations and Hijmans’ enthusiasm. e Court’s balancing between economic interests and the right to data protection will be elaborated upon in section 4, while also attempting to address Peers’ and Solove’s criticism on the Court’s balancing method. Finally, in section 5, the authors, in response to Kuner’s idea of the globalization of constitutional clashes, will present their own thoughts on Google’s actual implementation of the Court’s decision for the past year and the DPAs’ reaction to it.

Keywords: Data, Protection