// Netherlands · Right to be forgotten
TV presenter loses bid to scrub Google search results linking her to adult sites
Rechtbank Amsterdam ·
ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2007:BA3941
The case
A TV presenter demanded that Google remove search results that wrongly linked her name to sex sites. The court denied the claim because Google's automatic search process is technical and passive in nature and there was no manifestly unlawful conduct by Google.
What the court considered
- 01Google has no preventive involvement with or influence on the content of automatically generated search results
- 02The crawling, indexing and ranking process has a technical, automatic and passive character
- 03There was no manifestly unlawful conduct by Google
- 04Plaintiff had less far-reaching options by directly addressing the website owners
What this means in practice
Individuals wishing to have harmful content about them removed from search results must first attempt to contact the original website owners. Search engines are not required to proactively monitor all search results for potentially unlawful content. This ruling establishes important precedents for search engine liability in the Netherlands and confirms their role as neutral technical intermediaries.
Legal basis
- Artikel 6:162 BW (onrechtmatige daad)
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