The right to be forgotten (Art. 17 GDPR) does not have to be implemented worldwide by search engine operators. The European Court of Justice has ruled that Google does not have to remove the links to websites worldwide that EU data subjects wished to be deleted.
Accordingly, search engine operators are not obliged to delete search results in all versions of their search engine, as the ECJ announced on 24 September (the decision in the case of Google LLC with file number C-507/17). In the EU, Google is obliged to carry out such delisting in all member state versions of its search engine. Furthermore, geoblocking must be implemented if necessary.
Since the introduction of the right to be forgotten by the European Court of Justice, Google has had to delete references to websites containing personal data in certain cases. According to the European Court of Justice’s Advocate General (opinion in January 2019), forgetting would have to be weighed against the public’s legitimate interest in access to information. This would no longer have been possible with the worldwide application of European law. Access to information should not be denied to people living in other jurisdictions.