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Google is a mega-monster of a global company. Period.

It knows everything about you, whether you like it or not. Google has seemingly bottomless databases, making digital gurus across the planet simultaneously worship it like an all-knowing religion, while still fearing it like a wild dog that could turn on you at any second.

But recently the European Court of Justice issued a ruling that momentarily stopped Google in its tracks.

What You Need to Know

It all started when a Spanish man (Mario) with an ugly credit past claimed that the skeletons in his financial closet shouldn’t be able to haunt his current life, now many years down the road.

Old online news articles about Mario were dredging up old, but 100% true, facts about his past. Those news articles were preventing him from current opportunities when a someone performed a Google search for his name, quickly unearthing some not-so-flattering truths about his financial past.

He didn’t think it was fair that years later, he couldn’t shake the bad rep. He took Google and the news organization to court, demanding that they erased his digital footprint so these old facts stopped following him. Mario argued in the European Court of Justice that this was a privacy issue, since his past issues had been resolved.

And the European Court of Justice agreed with him.

How Google Got Spanked

The court ruled that Google needed to remove its links to online newspaper stories that had reported on Mario’s issues. But the court said that the originator of the unflattering web pages (the newspaper itself, which Mario also went after) had no obligation to remove their online articles because all of the facts were true at the original time of publishing.

In the USA and Canada, this idea of “erasing one’s digital footprint” seems to be just that - a far-fetched idea. In the land of sue-happy Americans, similar cases have tried & failed in US court.

While everyone can sympathize that it sucks to have unsavory documents and articles permanently linked to your name, in Mario’s case, there’s a reason those digital files existed - because they were true. It happened.

By the court ruling Google to erase links, but saying that the originator of the content (the newspaper) has no obligation to remove the actual source files (because they’re true), it’s almost a slap in the face to Google and every other search engine out there that now has this courtroom precedence in place. In this case, Google was punished for being the messenger.

Erasing Our Digital Past - a Realistic Expectation?

We live in a digital world, where everything we do is permanently documented somewhere, somehow. If you don’t want your ugly past linked to you years after you’ve cleaned up your act, I only see two viable solutions: 1) try harder to prevent it in the first place, or 2) make a bigger effort to get current, positive links and coverage that would mentally trump the older, negative ones when someone is thoroughly researching your background.

Although it’s hard to feel sympathy for a giant like Google, a little part of me does. It’s scary when we move toward a world where was the idea of taking responsibility for your actions has disappeared, instead, demanding others to change in order to sweep things under the rug.

What do YOU Think?

Feel free to read the original NPR story for yourself & form your own opinion. What do you think of the Euro court’s ruling?

Whether you agree or disagree, I know you’ve got an opinion. Tell me in the comments below.