As EU law currently stands, it is for the Member States to decide whether the natural persons referred to in Article 2(1)(d) and (j) of Directive 68/151 may ask the authority responsible for keeping the relevant central, commercial or companies register to decide, case by case, whether it is exceptionally justified, on compelling legitimate grounds relating to their particular situation, to limit, after a sufficiently long period following the dissolution of the company concerned, access by third parties to personal data about them entered in that register to third parties that can demonstrate a specific interest in consulting that data.

Where the conditions in Article 12(b) and Article 14(a) are satisfied, a search engine operator must remove from the results shown after a search on a person's name links to third-party web pages containing information about that person. That applies even if the name or information is not erased from those web pages beforehand or at the same time, and even if publication on those pages is itself lawful.

When assessing whether Article 12(b) and Article 14(a) apply, it must be examined, among other things, whether the data subject is entitled, at this point in time, to have the information no longer linked to his name by the list of results shown after a search on his name. That right does not depend on the inclusion of the information in the list causing prejudice to the data subject. As a rule, the data subject's rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter override both the search engine operator's economic interest and the general public's interest in finding that information through a search on the data subject's name. But not where, for particular reasons such as the data subject's role in public life, the general public's preponderant interest in access to the information justifies the interference with those rights.