In order to request removal, the applicant must be able to assert that, due to the time elapsed, the data does not correspond to, is no longer relevant to or goes beyond the purpose for which it was collected. The affected person may submit a request for the removal of links in the list of search results to the search-engine provider, which is to assess these requests. If it does not accept the requests, the affected person may turn to the supervisory authority of the responsible court.
However, the issue of what periods of time justify the removal of such links is still open. This may depend on the content or specific period of time, or rather the specific case at hand.
This decision, which is applicable to the EU, does not improve the current legal situation in Switzerland. However, this also obscures the fact that contents can only be removed at the source. This means that such requests are to not just be submitted to Google, but rather also to Yahoo, Bing etc., which can all in all be more complicated than acting against the contents provider.
Source:
- The ECJ’s preliminary ruling of 13 May 2014, which can be found at http://goo.gl/EaCkg5