This seems a bit one-sided. As the opening paragraph of the article says, there are very good reasons for not just complying with every request:
“The right to be forgotten must strike the correct balance between, on the one hand, the public’s right of access to information and, on the other hand, the rights and interests of the data subject,” said Hielke Hijmans, Director of the DPA’s Litigation Chamber.
They were so obviously wrong that they could have saved themselves 600K, a bunch of legal fees and a serious dent in their privacy image. After all, the fact that a complaint is leveled against someone is not something that needs to follow that person the rest of their life if not substantiated.
This is the reason why in many countries suspects are not named until conviction. So that they can clear their name in case the allegations are not substantiated enough to lead to conviction. Just being a suspect of anything should not ruin your life, even when you are a public figure. This as opposed to the United States where even just being a suspect can ruin your life easily, complete with mugshot and newspaper articles that detail the complaint but that never seem to find the resources to deal with the cases that don't make it to court or that fail to lead to a conviction. But that doesn't matter, in the court of public opinion the damage will be done.
“The right to be forgotten must strike the correct balance between, on the one hand, the public’s right of access to information and, on the other hand, the rights and interests of the data subject,” said Hielke Hijmans, Director of the DPA’s Litigation Chamber.
Obviously, in this case, Google was wrong.