Right to be Forgotten and Search Engines: The Supreme Court on balancing with the right to report

1. The fact

   The procedural history culminating in the recent Supreme Court ruling concerns a Lombard entrepreneur active in real estate and previously an unelected candidate in local politics, who was implicated in a nationally resonant investigation. According to reports from Agi and leading financial newspapers, the individual was subjected to a precautionary measure on charges of 'ndrangheta association and aggravated usury, linked by the press to tenders for major public works. Subsequently, the proceedings concluded with a final acquittal only for the associative charge, while the definitive conviction for aggravated usury was confirmed. Despite this, in subsequent years, searching for his name on major search engines continued to yield, as top results, crime news articles from the time without any update on his partial acquittal. The entrepreneur therefore sued the search engine operator to obtain the de-indexing of such content. After his claim was dismissed in a single instance by the Court of Milan based on his persistent public relevance as a former candidate, the Supreme Court overturned the decision, establishing that notoriety cannot justify perennial digital stigmatization, especially in light of an irrevocable acquittal for the most serious crime, despite a conviction for usury.

2. 

   The legal framework

   The central provisions for resolving the case are Art. 17 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and Art. 21 of the Italian Constitution.

   1. Art. 17 GDPR governs the right to erasure or to be forgotten, allowing the data subject to request the removal of personal data when no longer necessary for the purposes for which they were collected, imposing an obligation on the data controller to act promptly.
   2. Art. 21 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press and the right to report, acting as a counterweight to the right to be forgotten: if a current public interest exists, the news remains lawfully accessible.
   3. Art. 64-ter of the implementing provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, introduced by the Cartabia Reform, provides a specific mechanism for appending an indexing block to dismissal or acquittal orders, strengthening the procedural protection of a citizen's image.

3. What the case law says

   The jurisprudence of the Supreme Court has clarified that the right to be forgotten is not an absolute right to rewrite or erase the past, but rather a right to the current truth of one's digital identity. For those who ran for public office, established case law holds that public interest in the news persists longer than for an ordinary citizen, without however being unlimited. The Court has set strict balancing criteria: the gravity of the alleged offenses (such as mafia-related crimes or corruption), the time elapsed since the conclusion of the proceedings, and, above all, the individual's continued presence in public life. The case law specifies that if the subject was never elected and holds no significant political or public roles, the right to privacy tends to prevail, requiring the search engine operator to de-index obsolete content that fails to reflect the partial acquittal, while leaving the publisher's historical archive accessible via direct search on the news outlet's website.

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8. What it teaches professionals

   1. Lawyers should closely monitor their clients' digital identity, taking prompt action following a final judgment, even in the case of a partial acquittal, to utilize the remedies provided by the Cartabia Reform.
   2. In de-indexing requests concerning former political candidates, it is essential to rigorously document the failure to be elected and the absence of any institutional roles to rebut claims of ongoing public interest.
   3. It is advisable to include alternative requests for contextualization and updating of search results in cases where full de-indexing may be difficult to obtain due to the historical gravity of the events.

9. Update and rectification note (17 September 2026)

   The previous version of this article incorrectly reported that the appellant had held public office and had been fully acquitted in all instances, indicating a dismissal in two instances on the merits. Based on official records (Cass. civ. Sez. I no. 14488/2025 and Court of Milan in a single instance), the text has been corrected to clarify that the individual was a former unelected candidate, that the merits trial took place in a single instance, and that the acquittal concerned only the associative charge, alongside a definitive conviction for aggravated usury.

References: Cass. civ. Sez. I n. 14488/2025Trib. MilanoArt. 17 GDPR (Regolamento UE 2016/679)Art. 21 Costituzione ItalianaArt. 64-ter disp. att. c.p.p. (Riforma Cartabia)

Editorial oversight: Avv. Federico Papa·ICAMUpdated 17 September 2026Content drafted with AI support and subject to editorial source checks. Despite these controls, inaccuracies may remain: reports and rectification requests are welcome. Report a correction