Google has won a landmark case at the European Court of Justice against French privacy regulators. 

In 2016, France's privacy watchdog CNIL had fined the US tech giant 100,000 Euros ($109,000) for refusing to remove sensitive personal information from global search results upon request. 

This "right to be forgotten" is currently in effect within the European Union, under a 2014 ruling which forces search engines to remove links which lead to out-of-date or false information which could unfairly harm a person's reputation. CNIL was attempting to force Google to purge such results globally.

Google, and its supporters including groups pressing for freedom of information, opposed the idea and warned that such a ruling would create a notable clash with various national statutes including the US concept of freedom of speech, as protected by the First Amendment. Google also argued that authoritarian regimes could misuse the ruling to cover up human rights abuses.