AbstractWith its decision in the Google-case, the Court has put essential ground rules of EU data protection law in concrete terms. It has thereby deviated in several ways from leading opinions in legal writing which may partly be due to the fact that these are not free of personal involvement. More importantly though seems the conclusion that this decision underlines in many respects that theoretical patterns of EU private law are different from those of the traditional national law - and this divergence also holds true for major parts of the public law and, of course, data protection law. The Court has interpreted the responsibility with regard to data protection law and also the criteria in Art. 4 of the Directive very broadly, which has not met with general approval before. The ECJ strictly orientated itself by the general concept that even the search engine operator requires a permit for the processing of data. This in mind, it has given the fundamental right of data protection an important role in its considering in contrast to the user’s interest in respect of use of the service and the economic interests of the operator
