Unlike in the United States, where freedom of expression is a fundamental right that supersedes other interests, Europe views an individual’s privacy and freedom of expression as almost equal rights.
Except everybody knows that the right privacy is not the reason. EUrocrats needed to use subterfuge as an opening salvo for the beginnings of censorship, so this is what they came up with.
But there's no surprise that NYT would give the EU the benefit of the doubt, since they tend to fawn all over whatever wacky EU policies are implemented anyway.
The data protection directive was passed in 1995, almost two decades ago. Google didn't exist back then. That would have been the EU playing a very long game, not to mention requiring amazing precognitive powers.
On the merits of the case, the ECJ's judgement was about the narrowest judgement that was possible given the text of the directive.
The part of the judgement that created the issue we're looking at now was that the ECJ decided that Google was subject to jurisdiction of other EU member states for purposes of data protection if it did business there (e.g., by selling advertising there). While there are some tricky legal issues involved here, that was hardly an outrageous ruling, given the goals of the common market.
Suddenly Google couldn't hide behind the Irish courts anymore, but people with a complaint were able to bring suit in their own country.
You can make a good argument that the outdated data protection directive is in dire need of revision, but claims of subterfuge by EU bureaucrats are tinfoil hattery in this case.
as you can see, the naivety of the avg hn ready confirms the points you made by down voting. if they'd live in the eu or at least open their swollen-by-intellect minds, they'd see through the charade.
having said that, i also have an issue with your comment: everybody does NOT know.
Another user already replied to your parent so I won't repeat the argument but just a note: I downvoted him and I'm English, not everyone (or even most) in the EU think like you, and it's misleading to imply to Americans/others that we do.
Except everybody knows that the right privacy is not the reason. EUrocrats needed to use subterfuge as an opening salvo for the beginnings of censorship, so this is what they came up with.
But there's no surprise that NYT would give the EU the benefit of the doubt, since they tend to fawn all over whatever wacky EU policies are implemented anyway.