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Tokyo - Tokyo District Court ordered Google to remove some internet search results revealing the name of a Japanese man who claims his privacy rights have been violated as they suggested he may have been involved in a crime in the past, a media report said on Friday.
Some of the search results "infringe personal rights", Judge Nobuyuki Seki said in a court document, according to Kyodo News agency. "Google, which manages the search engine, has the obligation to delete them."
It is likely the first legal decision in Japan ordering the operator of a search engine to remove search results, the man's lawyer told Kyodo.
In June, the man requested an injunction, saying his life had been threatened as hundreds of search results with information concerning past events were listed when he did a Google search for his name.
The judge acknowledged that the man had suffered "actual harm" as the search results gave the impression that his behaviour was inappropriate, ordering Google to eliminate around 120 of about 230 search results, Kyodo said.
Google opposed the decision, saying it had no obligation to remove the results. The court dismissed the objection, saying, the US company will not suffer an unjust disadvantage even if it is obliged to remove the search results, the report said.
Google has already deleted some of the search results, the lawyer said.
In May, the European Court of Justice decided that search engine operators such as Google can be asked to remove links to personal information that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed".
