The Right to Be Forgotten in the European Union and Russia : Comparison and Criticism

On 14 July, 2015 the Russian President signed Law No. 264-FZ which grants Russian citizens the right to request the delisting of search results which link to inaccurate or irrelevant information about them (“the right to be forgotten”).This paper discusses the decision of the Court of Justice of the EU in Google Spain v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González, the case which inspired Law No. 264-FZ, and compares implementation of the right to be forgotten in the EU and Russia. It is found that the Russian law was created as a sui generis right, and fails to account for the right of the general public to find and access information online. Other discrepancies include a wider scope of the right to be forgotten, rigid requirements for processing removal requests and the prohibition to disclose any information about such requests