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Google does not have to delete links to a factually correct, albeit unflattering news article, Germany's top court has ruled in two separate cases on Monday.

Siding with the lower courts in rejecting the two appeals, Germany's federal court of justice decided on individuals' rights to have the internet-search giant Google remove links to articles about them, also known as the right to be forgotten, or the right to erasure. 

In the first case, the court said Google is not obliged to remove links to articles solely because their subjects deem them to be unfavorable, the German high court, Bundesgerichtshof, ruled, according to a statement on the judgment. 

The case concerned the employee of a charitable organisation, who had gone on sick leave after the charity that had fallen into financial difficulty. His case, including his full name, was reported in local newspapers nine years ago. The articles could be found by searching for his name on Google. 

In its ruling, the court stressed that the public's right to information had to be weighed against an individual's right to privacy. 

The data protection law GDPR "requires a comprehensive weighing of fundamental rights, which must be carried out on the basis of all relevant circumstances of the individual case and taking into account the seriousness of the encroachment on the fundamental rights of the person concerned on the one hand, the basic rights of the defendant, the interests of its users and the public as well as the basic rights of the providers of the contents proven in the objected result links on the other hand," the court said in the statement. 

In the second case, a couple had objected to a critical report about a business venture that involved one of them. The couple demanded that both thumbnail images displayed in the search results and articles be removed. The German court passed the case to the European court of justice, to clarify questions dealing with the responsibility of verifying internet content and the use of pictures in search results, the court said in the statement.

The case is but the latest European court success for a tech giant in recent months. Earlier this month, the European Court of Justice quashed a state aid decision by the Commission ordering the U.S. tech giant Apple to pay back €13.1 billion in unpaid taxes.

One day later, the Luxembourg-based court also ruled that the U.S.-EU data protection agreement known as "Privacy Shield" did not meet GPDR standards, essentially ordering the Commission to work out a new deal with U.S. authorities.

Last week, Slack, the company behind the popular messaging platform of the same name, filed a competition complaint before the European Commission against its main rival, Microsoft.

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