Attacks on the Press: Journalism on the World's Front Lines, 2015 Edition

17. Two Continents, Two Courts, Two Approaches to Privacy

By Geoffrey King

Mario Costeja González speaks on his mobile phone outside a court in Barakaldo, Spain, on June 25, 2013. As a result of a lawsuit he filed against Google, Internet companies can be made to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information from search engine results, Europe’s top court ruled.

Source: Reuters/Vincent West

At 3:20 A.M. on August 24, 2014, the strongest earthquake in a quarter-century rocked the San Francisco Bay Area, causing damage widely estimated at between 300 million and 1 billion.

The quake spared Silicon Valley and other areas farther south, ...