19/07/2017 (Agence Europe) – On Wednesday 19 July, the French Council of State sent the European Court of Justice (ECJ) a referral in which it calls for precisions regarding the scope of the law on dereferencing online. This issue is creating several “serious difficulties of interpretation regarding EU law”. The judges called on the ECJ to decide if dereferencing, when acceptable, should be operated on all national search engine extensions, particularly those outside the Union. They also asked whether search engine operators must, by way of the geo-blocking technique, remove the litigious links in the state where the research is carried out or in another member state. In 2014, the ECJ (C-131/12) established the right to forget (see EUROPE 11078), by which an individual can, to a certain extent, request the search engine operator to remove the links that lead to the data affecting them. (LT)