// Netherlands · Right to be forgotten
Court Denies Wealthy Heir's Bid to Scrub Criminal Past From Google Search Results
Rechtbank Noord-Holland ·
ECLI:NL:RBNHO:2024:2836
The case
A wealthy heir of a prominent real estate family requested Google to remove a blog post from search results, claiming it contained factual inaccuracies about his criminal past and family. The court denied the request as insufficient evidence was provided that a substantial part of the publication was manifestly inaccurate, ruling that public interest in information access outweighed his privacy interests.
What the court considered
- 01Petitioner failed to demonstrate that a non-insignificant part of the publication was manifestly inaccurate, despite claiming 'numerous factual inaccuracies'
- 02The court found insufficient evidence was provided - only a police report and website reference - and rejected the offer to provide additional evidence later
- 03In the balancing test, public interests outweighed privacy: petitioner is a public figure due to family connections and criminal convictions
- 04The publication was not deemed outdated, irrelevant or excessive, despite its amateurish form and anonymous author
- 05Freedom of information rights prevailed as no manifest inaccuracies were proven to affect a non-insignificant part of the publication
What this means in practice
In right to be forgotten cases, this means that claimants must prepare carefully with concrete evidence demonstrating inaccuracies. Merely asserting that information is incorrect is insufficient. Companies and public figures must understand that their prominence strengthens the information interests at stake, even in lower quality publications. This ruling clarifies the burden of proof for requests based on 'manifestly inaccurate information' following the Court of Justice judgment Google/TU RE (2022). It demonstrates that even for public figures, concrete substantiation of claims of inaccuracy is required, despite the lower evidential threshold introduced by the Court of Justice.
Legal basis
- Artikel 17 lid 1 en 3 AVG
- Artikel 21 lid 1 AVG
- Artikel 6 lid 1 sub f AVG
- Artikel 3 Rv
Related rulings
- French top court: naming person in article on criminal conviction may standFrance · 3 June 2026
- Dutch real estate entrepreneur loses bid to remove criminal conviction article from Google search resultsNetherlands · 28 August 2025
- Google Defeats Legal Firm's Search Ranking Complaint Over Casino TermsNetherlands · 28 May 2025
- Oral surgeon loses bid to scrub negative patient review from Google searchNetherlands · 22 December 2022
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