AP - 854 / 2025

AP - 854 / 2025
Court:	AP (Greece)
Jurisdiction:	Greece
Relevant Law:	Article 4(2) GDPR Article 4(7) GDPR Article 11 ECHR Article 8 ECHR Article 57 Greek civil code
Decided:	09.09.2024
Published:	20.05.2025
Parties:	Google LLC Google Greece
National Case Number/Name:	854 / 2025
European Case Law Identifier:
Appeal from:	Athens Court of Appeal (Greece)
Appeal to:
Original Language(s):	Greek
Original Source:	Areios Pagos (in Greek)
Initial Contributor:	Le

The Supreme Court ruled that Google was obliged to identify and delete the auto suggestions/auto completions and links in the search results that contained derogatory terms about a data subject which earlier made a respective request.

English Summary

Facts

The data subject is a journalist, who in 2011 started receiving backlash for publishing her research on generic drugs. Many websites posted abusive, defamatory and derogatory comments about her being transexual. Google associated her name with the derogatory and defamatory comments about her and, as a result, upon googling her name, those terms came up as an auto suggestion/auto completion in the search tool.

In 2012, the data subject filed a case before the court of first instance (Athens Court of First Instance) against the U.S. based Google LLC and the Greek subsidiary, Google Greece, (controllers) requesting that the said auto suggestions/auto completions and links to the said pages would be deleted since they constituted a violation of her personality and damaged her honour and reputation.

The court issued interim measures and then a decision ordering the controllers to cease and desist from associating in any way her name with these words and prevent any future posting of similar content in the search results. The court found that the controllers violated her personality rights under Greek law (Civil code, Articles 57-59) and awarded her €30,000 in non material damages.

Nevertheless, the auto suggestions/auto completions regarding her name and the links were not deleted and the data subject contacted Google LLC and Google Greece multiple times in an attempt to resolve this. On their behalf, the controllers instructed her to file a request on their platform and point out the certain URLs for deletion.

Both parties appealed before the court of appeal (Athens Court of Appeal). The controllers claimed that the court of first instance erred in the application of the law, arguing that they were not liable for the content of the third-party posts on the Internet appearing in the search engine and that they may remove specific URLs only if they are notified (with a specific reference) by the data subject. The data subject claimed a higher compensation.

The court of appeal, in 2016, rejected the appeal. It made clear that both Google LLC and Google Greece were responsible for the technical and commercial operation of the search engine and the auto suggestions/auto completions feature and are considered controllers. It held that as controllers they were responsible for the content third parties posted on the Internet in the context of the operation of the search engine were bound to immediately comply with the court’s order.

The controllers further appealed before the Supreme Court (Supreme Court of Greece- Areios Pagos).

Holding

The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the court of appeal.

First, it pointed out that online search engines, do not (in principle) create new, primary content, but merely indicate where existing content can be searched for, thereby providing a 'hyperlink' to the website containing the terms searched for. If the originating websites, web pages and blogs contain personal data, then their content in the search engine contains such data, in which case national and EU legislation on the protection of personal data applies. With references to the CJEU cases Google Spain (C-131/12) and Lindqvist (C-101/01), the court held that making available to internet users in a certain order of preference information published or posted on the internet by third parties must be classified as processing of personal data under Article 4(2) GDPR.

Second, it held that therefore the search engine operators determine the purposes and means of carrying out the activities of the search engine, meaning that Google LLC and Google Greece must be qualified as the controllers of that processing under Article 4(7) GDPR.

Third, it ruled that search engine operators shall be required to remove from the list of results, which appears after a search carried out on the basis of the name of a person, links published by third parties containing information relating to that person that are inaccurate or unlawful.

In the present case, since the request for removal of the links to the websites was made in connection with application and issuing for interim measures in 2012, (which temporarily prohibited the controllers from making any such reference to the data subject in connection with the words), the court held that no further specific and concrete request was required from the data subject. The court held that she did not have to request the deletion again or proceed with the identification of the URLs to be deleted. Lastly, the court highlighted that this was in line with Article 8 and Article 11 CFR.

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English Machine Translation of the Decision

The decision below is a machine translation of the Greek original. Please refer to the Greek original for more details.

Automatic translation - Automatic translation (Google translate) Decision link << Back Decision 854 / 2025 (A1, CIVIL) Number 854/2025 THE COURT OF THE AREOPAGOS A1' Civil Division Formed by Judges: Christos Katsianis, Presiding Areopagite, Asimina Ifanti, Stefanos - Spyridonas Pantazopoulos, Georgios Papageorgiou and Fotios Mouzakis - Rapporteur, Areopagites. It sat in public in its audience, on March 6, 2023, in the presence of the Secretary Georgios Fistouris, to try the case between: The appellants: 1) A Single-member Limited Liability Company with the name "...", based in Marousi, Attica and legally represented, 2) A Société Anonyme with the name "..." (formerly "..."), based in the United States of America and legally represented, which was represented by its attorney-at-law Ioannis - Dionysios Filiotis with a declaration pursuant to article 242 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure and filed motions. Of the appellant: M. T. of D. and already M. L. of the wife of G. O. L., resident of ..., who was represented by her attorney Georgios Voukelatos with a statement pursuant to article 242 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure and filed motions. The legal dispute began with the lawsuit of the already appellant dated 15/1/2013, which was filed with the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens. The following decisions were issued: ... final of the same Court and ... of the Three-Member Court of Appeal of Athens. The appellants request the annulment of the latter decision with their application dated 28/7/2021. During the discussion of this application, which was read out from the board, the parties were present, as noted above. IT WAS DETERMINED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW With the application for annulment under consideration, dated 28/7/2021 (no. exh. file....), the final decision issued during the regular procedure, no. ... of the (Three-member) Court of Appeal of Athens, is challenged, which, judging in opposition to the parties on the co-litigants a) from 4.9.2017 with G.A.K. ... and E.A.K. ... and b) from 12.10.2017 with G.A.K. ... and E.A.K. ... appeals against the ... final decision of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens, formally accepted and rejected them in substance and accepted only the request submitted, through the proposals filed before the Court of Second Instance on 4.12.2019 by the appellant of the first of the above appeals, for the award of ancillary claims (default interest) and obliged the respondents therein, jointly and severally, to pay the appellant default interest on the amount awarded by the respondent no. ... final decision of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Regular Procedure) in the amount of thirty thousand euros (€30,000) from the day following the service of this (decision) on each of the appellants and until full payment. The appeal was filed legally and within the time limit, namely within two years from the publication of the contested decision, given that the latter does not appear to have been served after its publication (articles 495, 552, 553, 556, 558, 564 §3, 566 §1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as in force after the entry into force of Law 4335/2015), while the required legal fee was paid during its exercise (see no. ... referred to in the appeal report e-fee - article 495 paragraph 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure). Therefore, it is admissible (article 577 §1 of the Code of Civil Procedure) and must be further investigated as to the admissibility and merits of its grounds (article 577 § 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure). From the admissible, pursuant to article 561 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, review of the procedural documents of the trial, the following emerges regarding the procedural course of the case: The respondent - plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the appellant - defendant companies on 15.1.2013 with G.A.K. ... and A.K.D. ... before the Multi-member Court of First Instance of Athens (Ordinary Procedure), in which she claimed that she is a journalist, working since 2003 at the television station "...", conducting journalistic research (reportage) on issues of current interest. That in 2011, when she began to research and present the results of her research on the issue of generic drugs, the evolving public debate and the reactions of the involved professional groups in the public health sector, she was targeted by the owners (administrators) of the websites detailed in her petition, who posted abusive, slanderous and defamatory comments about her on the internet. That the defendant companies, the latter as a provider of search engine services at a global level, and the former as a subsidiary of the latter operating in Greece to achieve the same corporate objectives, associated the contents of specific websites with her name, such as the above abusive and defamatory comments, with the result that when typing her name (as a "keyword") in the relevant field of the search engine of the second defendant foreign company ("..."), the phrases "M. T. gender reassignment", "M. T. transgender", "M. T. man", "M. T. traveler" appear to all internet users, through the suggestion and auto-complete services of the said search engine. That on 16.5.2012 she filed an application for interim measures against the owners (administrators) of the websites, on which the insulting and defamatory comments about her had been posted, as well as against the second defendant foreign company, requesting, on the one hand, that the owners (administrators) of the websites be ordered to temporarily remove the insulting and defamatory posts about her, and on the other hand, that the second defendant foreign company be ordered to cease associating her name with the words "traveler", "transsexual" and "transvestite" in its search engine, as well as to allow any indirect reference to them. That on her said request, a temporary order was issued on 24.5.2012 by the President of the Athens Court of First Instance, by which the defendant companies were temporarily prohibited, until the hearing of the request for interim measures, from associating her name with the aforementioned words in the search engine "...", and an exact copy of the aforementioned temporary order was notified to them (the defendant companies) on 29.5.2012. That, despite this, the defendant companies continued to associate her name with the aforementioned defamatory and insulting allegations, and for this reason she sent a new e-mail message (e-mail) to the relevant employees of the second defendant foreign company, requesting that they comply with the provisions of the aforementioned temporary order. That subsequently, on the said request for interim measures, decision No. ... of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens was issued, ordering the defendant companies to refrain in the future from associating her name with the above words or other defamatory phrases. That the above court decision was served on the first defendant company on 5.11.2012, however, the said offensive comments were only removed from the auto complete field and continue to appear by the suggestion services in the field of the defendant companies' search engine entitled "searches related to M. T.", where, when typing her name, the phrases "M. T. gender reassignment", "M. T. transgender" and "M. T. man" appear. That by their aforementioned illegal and culpable conduct, the defendant companies, who were aware of her objections, as well as the fact that they were violating the operative part of the above-mentioned interim measure decision served on them, insulted her personality and damaged her honor and reputation, because, by associating her name with the specific words and phrases, and indeed on a global scale, they attributed to her personal qualities related to her gender, which do not exist, and altered the real elements of her personality, with the consequence of significantly damaging her professional reputation and status. That, taking into account that hundreds of thousands of searches are carried out daily by Greek-speaking users through the search engine of the defendant companies, she runs a real risk of expanding the damage, which she has already suffered by associating her name with the above inaccurate, abusive and defamatory phrases. Based on this background, the plaintiff requested, following the admissibility of her legally filed motions of 24.9.2015 and the relevant oral statement of her attorney, registered in the same number as the defendant's minutes of the discussion before the Court of First Instance, a limitation of the claim of the lawsuit (Article 223 of the Code of Civil Procedure): a) to order the defendant companies to definitively cease associating in any way her name and surname with the words and phrases "transsexual", "transsexual", "transvestite", "gender change" and "man" on the website where they provide the search service under the title "...", for any search for information with a word or "keywords", with entire phrases or with a combination of words, b) to oblige the defendant companies to prevent in the future any posting of similar content in the results field of their same service, containing the above words and phrases, threatened against each of them in case of non-compliance with a fine of fifty thousand EUROS (€50,000) for each day of non-compliance with the operative part of the decision to be issued, c) to oblige the defendant companies to register on their central website, which concerns the said search service and in the same sections, where the above characteristics associated with its name and surname are displayed, the issued decision, threatened against each of them in case of non-compliance with a fine of fifty thousand EUROS (€50,000) for each day of non-compliance with the operative part of the decision to be issued, d) to order the defendant companies to proceed at their own expense to publish the decision to be issued in two (2) daily and two (2) financial newspapers in Athens, e) to oblige the defendant companies to pay it, in full each, the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand EUROS (€250,000), as compensation for the moral damage caused to it as a result of their illegal and culpable acts and omissions, f) to declare the decision to be issued provisionally enforceable and g) to oblige the defendant companies to pay its general legal costs.  On this action, the final decision No. ... of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Regular Procedure) was issued, by which it was partially accepted as well-founded in substance and: a) the defendant companies were obliged to definitively cease associating the plaintiff's name in the suggestion and auto-complete services of the search engine "..." with the keywords or phrases "transsexual", "transvestite", "transvestite", "M. T. was a man" or "M. T. was a man", "gender change", "M. T. before" and "which journalist of ... was a man", b) each of the defendant companies was sentenced to pay the plaintiff a fine of five thousand EUROS (€5,000) for each day of non-compliance with the above (under item c) of the act, c) the defendant companies were obliged to cease in the future to associate the plaintiff's name in the suggestion and auto-complete services of the search engine "..." with the keywords or phrases "transsexual", "transvestite", "transvestite", "M. T. was a man" or "M. T. man", "gender change", "M. T. before" and "which journalist of ... was a man", d) each of the defendant companies was threatened with a fine of five thousand EUROS (€5,000) for each day of their non-compliance with the above (under item c) obligation, e) the decision was declared provisionally enforceable with respect to the above (under items a' to d) obligations, f) the defendant companies were obliged, jointly and severally each, to pay the plaintiff the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000), g) the registration of a summary of the decision by the defendant companies and at their own expense in the newspapers "..." and "..." within fifteen (15) days from the service of the final decision, h) each of the defendant companies was ordered to pay the plaintiff a fine of five thousand EUROS (€5,000) for each day of delay in publishing the summary of the decision and i) a part of the plaintiff's legal costs was imposed on the defendant companies, which was set at the amount of three thousand three hundred and fifty EUROS (€3,350). Both parties appealed against this decision, complaining of incorrect interpretation and application of the law and poor assessment of the evidence, and requested, on the one hand, the plaintiff - respondent in her appeal, that the appealed decision be reformed in accordance with the chapters challenged in the appeal, in order to accept her claim in its entirety, and on the other hand, the defendants - appellant companies in their appeal, that the appealed decision be annulled, in order to reject the aforementioned claim in its entirety, as well as to order their opponent to pay their general legal costs of both levels of jurisdiction. On these appeals, the contested decision [(Trim)EfAθ ...] was issued, from the review of which it emerges that, in addition to its legal considerations, the following were accepted - after re-evaluation of the evidence presented to the Court and analytically reported by type -: "The second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II, now residing in the State of ... of the U.S.A. (..., U.S.A.), a company under the name "..." ("..." at the time of filing the lawsuit) provides internet users with search engine services (under the title "...") at a global level, through the central website "...", where it is possible to search for pre-existing content (information), which has already been made available (posted) by third parties on the internet, and this is possible by providing a hyperlink to the website containing the search terms. The results displayed in the above search engine do not come from an instant search of the entire world wide web, but are collected from content that has previously been processed by the search engine on the Internet. That is, the search engine in question has retrieved content from existing websites (web sites, which consist of several web pages) and blogs, and has copied, analyzed and indexed this content in its own technological infrastructure. Since the websites and blogs of origin include personal data, then the content of the search engine also includes such data. Furthermore, in order to enable easy use by Internet users of the search results, the search engine of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, often displays additional content, in parallel with the link to the original website. This content may consist of text excerpts, audiovisual content or even snapshots from the originating websites or websites or blogs. This preview may be retrieved, at least in part, through the technological infrastructure of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, and not directly from the original website or blog. Therefore, the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, even if it itself does not post "primary" content (information material), but pre-existing content, which has also been posted on websites, websites and histology by third parties and made available to an undetermined number of internet users at an earlier time, as an operator of the search engine "...", is the actual owner of the information in question (personal data, including, possibly, slanderous, defamatory or insulting and generally offensive comments about specific persons), and the management of this information (in the form of its automatic indexing [with systematic use of "spiders", i.e. special computer programs for locating and scanning the content of web pages], its temporary storage and ultimately its availability to internet users in a certain order of preference, in the form of a list of search results) constitutes "processing of personal data", according to what was accepted above in the aforementioned major consideration under point D. In particular, in the search engine "..." of second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, is provided with the "suggest" and "auto complete" services, which facilitate its users during the search by associating the query being typed with the possible results. More specifically, these functions are activated before the query is sent (completed) and already after the user begins to type specific words or phrases (or even the first letter of the word), in which he is interested. Based on the typing, "key words" are identified, which are related to the query or simply start with the same letter or have the same grammatical theme as it. At the same time, the query is automatically completed in the form of an "additional window", below the "window" of the query, to which the results relate. The "auto complete" is created with the help of a mathematical algorithm, which displays the associated words depending on the frequency of search by users at a global level. It should be noted, finally, that the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, does not provide the said search engine services "..." in return for financial consideration (not falling for this reason within the scope of application of Presidential Decree 131/2003 "Adaptation to Directive 2000/31 of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the internal market [Directive on electronic commerce], since according to the provision of Article 1, paragraph a' of the aforementioned Presidential Decree, it is expressly provided that "For the purposes of this Presidential Decree, the following are understood as: (a) "Services of the Information Society- "Information society service": any information society service, namely any service that is usually provided for remuneration, by electronic means at a distance and following the personal choice of a service recipient within the meaning of paragraph 2 of article 2 of the Presidential Decree. 39/2001 (A' 28) "establishing an information procedure in the field of technical standards and specifications and of rules on information society services in compliance with Directives 98/34/EEC and 98/48/EC"), however, it is not limited to providing free access to the content of the various web pages, websites and blogs to all internet users through the use of the aforementioned search engine, but undoubtedly proceeds to economic exploitation of the said (freely provided) services, by posting, for a fee, advertising messages, which appear automatically when using the search engine and are directly linked to the search terms (i.e. the "keywords"), which internet users enter during their search and are registered by commercial enterprises, which use these tools, in order to promote their services or products to internet users as potential final recipients (consumers) of said services or products. Furthermore, the first respondent in the appeal under item I - first appellant in the appeal under item II, which was originally established as a limited liability company with no.  ... contract of the Notary of Athens T. S. and now operates after continuous amendments to its articles of association under the legal form of a sole proprietorship limited liability company with the sole partner being the company registered in the State of ... of the U.S.A. under the name "...", similarly a subsidiary of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company under the then name of "....", which is its sole manager, according to the analytically stated in the submitted appeal no. ... contract of the aforementioned Notary, with the object of increasing its share capital and amending - codifying the articles of association of a single-person limited liability company, has as its purpose (article 3 par. 1 of its articles of association codified by the aforementioned contract): a) the sale of advertising listings on internet websites, b) the undertaking of activities for the promotion of advertising listings on internet websites and c) the marketing and promotion of sales of other products and services in relation to the internet or independently of it. Therefore, the respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II are members of the group of companies "...", a fact that is agreed upon and not specifically disputed by them, given that in the list of subsidiaries and branches of the group posted on the internet (on the website ........es) as an office and professional establishment of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II, the registered office of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - first appellant in the appeal under item II is stated to be in Amarousio, Attica. Moreover, the services of the search engine "..." of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II are provided in Greece through the central website ........gr. Furthermore, in view of the aforementioned purpose of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, the latter acts as a representative in Greece of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company within the meaning of the provision of article 3 par. 3, paragraph b' of Law 2472/1997 "Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data", as it was in force until its repeal by article 84 of Law 4624/2019 "Personal Data Protection Authority, implementing measures for Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data". personal data and implementing Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council and other provisions", but also as a commercial representative of the group of companies "...", having as its main commercial purpose the promotion of the sales of advertising space, which is available through the central website .... And although the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, is not directly involved in the finding, indexing and storage of information contained in third-party websites, websites and histology, i.e. its activity is not directly related (at a technical - operational level) to the development of the services of the search engine "...", however, the activity of promotion and sale of advertising space in Greece, which, according to the above, it exercises, constitutes the main part of the commercial activity of the group of companies "...", from this point on it is closely and inextricably linked to search services, because through the sale of advertising space, the, in principle, free provision of said search services becomes economically efficient (therefore advantageous). In particular, the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, within the framework of its corporate purpose, promotes and sells "keywords" to interested Greeks and generally to internet users residing in Greece (as a rule, commercial enterprises operating in Greece or in Greece), in order for their advertising listing to appear simultaneously with the search results, as they result from the use of the "keywords". That is, the processing of personal data, which is carried out for the needs of the operation of the search engine "...", which is managed and exploited by the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, which has, according to the above, a professional establishment in Greece through the establishment (through another subsidiary of the company) of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II of a single-member limited liability company, is carried out within the framework of the latter's commercial activities and in particular the sale of advertising space made available by the aforementioned search engine, with the ultimate aim of the profitable economic exploitation of the services of this engine, which are not "charged" to its users, but, ultimately and as a result, to those advertised through it (individual businesses and other commercial companies). Consequently, the commercial activity of both the respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II, which are part of the same business group and constitute a single and indivisible entity exclusively from an economic point of view, must likewise be understood as a single one, given that the (free) search services provided by the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II to internet users become economically profitable exclusively and only through the commercial activity of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company (sale of advertising space in the search engine space to third-party commercial enterprises), as is indeed the case with the systematic appearance of advertising listings, appearing during each user's search in the context of their use of the specific search engine, depending on the requested information, as explained above. Therefore, it is considered that the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, which operates as a representative in Greece of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company within the meaning of the provision of article 3 par. 3, paragraph b' of Law 2472/1997 "Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data", as it was in force until its repeal by article 84 of Law 4624/2019 "Personal Data Protection Authority, measures for the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and transposition of Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council and other provisions", but also as a commercial representative of the group of companies "...", having as its main commercial purpose the promotion of sales of advertising space, which is available through the central website ..., it also proceeds with the "processing of personal data", as accepted above in the aforementioned major point under point D. Moreover, since the advertising activity of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-person limited liability company, is implemented through the sale of "keywords" to interested commercial enterprises in Greece, it is directly linked to the "keywords" which appear in the suggestion and auto-complete services of the search engine "...", given that, depending on the order and frequency of appearance of the specific words or phrases, the price for the sale of advertising space to advertising users also varies. Therefore, the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, becomes (through its competent employees, either as fulfillment assistants under the provision of article 334 of the Civil Code or as additional persons under the provision of article 922 of the Civil Code) responsible for the operation of the aforementioned suggestion and auto-complete services in Greece, insofar as it carries out its advertising activity through their operation, and it is irrelevant that the sole partner and manager thereof is the third party (non-party to the present proceedings) residing in the State of ... of the U.S.A. company under the name "...", because the partner and manager of the latter is the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, and all the above companies are part of the group of companies "..." and constitute an inseparable and indivisible economic unit, and despite the independence of the legal entities of the above companies, the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, as manager and actually controlling the sole partner and manager of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, takes all decisions and gives all the appropriate orders in its judgment for the achievement of the latter's commercial purpose.  Furthermore, it is proven that the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II during the period from 2004 to 2013 worked as a journalist at the national radio and television station "...", specializing in medical reporting and reporting on public health issues in general, while at the same time studying at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Around the beginning of 2011, within the framework of the above professional activity, the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II began to investigate the then topical issue of the introduction and use of "generic" medicines in the National Health System (NHS), with emphasis on investigating the interests of large pharmaceutical companies, but also on the consequences for state revenues from the prescription of medicines based on the active substance, bypassing the so-called "brand names" (originals) of medicines. Due to the systematic preoccupation of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II with the above issue and given the public expression of her opinion on the matter in favor of the use of generic drugs, around the end of February 2012 she received visits from executives of pharmaceutical companies, who tried to persuade her, and during the broadcast of her relevant television show she began to receive abusive messages on social media and subsequently found that abusive, defamatory and false comments about her had been posted on various websites. In particular, on the websites ... and ... there appeared publications (postings) with the phrases "M. T. traveli", "M. T. transsexual" and "M. T. travesti", and furthermore on the autonomous blog with the address ..., which is hosted on the website ..., an article by N. G. entitled "M. T.: The journalist of ... who wanted to be a Graveza since she was a child" was published on 25.2.2012. Below the said article, the following comment had been posted by an unknown (anonymous) visitor to the blog: "Isn't this the transsexual journalist of ...? She has been buzzing the internet for hours. And I cut my hand off that she was a transsexual, because she doesn't look like a woman. Tell us your opinion as a man because I'm going to scream!". During the aforementioned period of time (February 2012 and onwards), the phrases "M. T. transsexual", "M. T. man", "M. T. traveler" and "M. T. gender reassignment" began to appear in the search engine "..." of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, which operates in Greece through the central website ........gr, when typing in the search field the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the appellant in the appeal under item II (composed of the words "M. T.") as "keywords", suggested by the aforementioned search engine through the auto-complete service (auto complete), the phrases "M. T. transsexual", "M. T. man", "M. T. transvestite" and "M. T. gender reassignment". Similarly, the above search engine suggested, through the suggestion service, searches related to the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II using the same phrases as above, while on the first page of the said search engine, links appeared, which directly referred to the websites or blogs, on which offensive and insulting articles about her had already been posted. Having become aware of the above publications, the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II filed before the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens on 16.5.2012 with G.A.K. ... and A.K.D. ... an application for interim measures against the owners - administrators of the websites ..., .... ... and httn: / /blogs...., as well as the ? second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, allegedly maintaining at that time a professional establishment in Greece, namely on the street ... in Athens, where the registered office of the first respondent in the appeal under item I was then located - first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company. With this application, the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II requested, among other things, the issuance of a temporary order, by which they are obliged: a) the owners - administrators of the above websites to temporarily remove the abusive, slanderous and defamatory postings from their websites and to omit in the future any direct or indirect reference to her name and person and b) the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, not to associate its name with the words "transsexual", "transsexual" and "transvestite", as well as to avoid any indirect reference to them, as well as to refrain in the future from associating its name with the above or other defamatory and slanderous words or phrases. The said request for a temporary injunction was discussed and accepted on 24.5.2012 by the President of the Service in the absence of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item I, a foreign company, and the temporary injunction granted was registered under the above request for interim measures with the following content: "Temporarily prohibits the defendants from any reference to the name and person of the applicant in connection with the words "traveli, transsexual and transvestite" ... until the discussion of the application and under the condition of its discussion at the appointed hearing". An exact certified copy of the request for interim measures following an act of setting the trial and summons for discussion at the scheduled trial of 15.10.2012 and of the temporary order registered on the pleading of the above request was duly served on the business establishment in Greece of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company (i.e. at the then registered office of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company on ... street in Athens) on 29.5.2012 (referring to the bailiff's service report submitted with the summons under no. ... to the Athens Court of First Instance B. B.). However, despite the service of the above temporary order, in the immediately following period of time (within the month of June 2012 and specifically on 11.6.2012, as was established in an investigative search) the search engine "..." continued to associate (through the aforementioned suggest and auto complete services) the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II with the words "traveler", "transsexual", "transvestite" and "man", even before the typing of the name and surname was completed. Specifically, when internet users typed the words "M. T...." in the search field, the operation of the above services was activated, before the user's query was completed, and at the same time the search engine automatically completed the query in the form of an "additional window", below the query "window", in which the following were displayed as results: "M. T. traveler", "M. T. man" and "M. T. transsexual". When the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II established that, despite the service of the above-mentioned provisional order of 24.5.2012 of the President of the Athens Court of First Instance at the professional establishment in Greece of the second appellant in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II of the foreign company (i.e. at the then registered office of the first appellant in the appeal under item I - first appellant in the appeal under item II of the single-member limited liability company on the street ... in Athens), the respondents in the appeal under item I - appellant in the appeal under item II of the companies (each independently and jointly liable, as "personal data controllers, according to the above) did not take any action to comply with the above-mentioned 24.5.2012 interim order of the President of the Service of the Athens Court of First Instance proceeded, with the result that the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II was obliged to send - through the attorney-in-fact of F. S. - an e-mail message (e-mail) to the competent service of the second appellant in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II of a foreign company entitled "The ... ... " to its e-mail address removals@....com, to which (e-mail message) it again attached the said interim order of 24.5.2012, requesting compliance with its content. However, in response to the aforementioned email, the competent "Team" of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, sent an anonymous email message (i.e. without the signature of a specific natural person) dated 21.6.2012, through which it confirmed the service of the interim order on it, but directly questioned its validity and binding nature and refused to comply with its content ("We confirm receipt of your request for deletion and the attached document that you sent us on 6/11/12. However, the document you attached to our communication does not appear to be a representative document of a valid legal process and/or does not appear to have been signed by a judge. While we try to comply with all Court Decisions, Calls and other valid indications from third parties about any legal process, which we receive, we have decided not to take any further action regarding your complaint at this time.  If you have any questions regarding the document you submitted, we recommend that you contact your legal advisor. Greetings, The Team of ... ". Despite this refusal, the appellant in the first appeal - the respondent in the second appeal insisted on trying to contact the competent service of the second appellant in the first appeal - the second appellant in the second appeal, a foreign company entitled "The ... ... " through the attorney-at-law of F. S., who sent (in July 2012) a new e-mail message, requesting the deletion (removal) of links to websites on which offensive references to the person of the appellant in the first appeal - the respondent in the second appeal had been posted. To this request, the competent service of the second appellant in the first appeal - the second appellant in the second appeal, a foreign company entitled "The ... ... " responded with the following 18.7.2012 email, in which he stated the following verbatim: "We have already responded or are in the process of responding to your request for the deletion of the following links http:// blogs. ... /eidiseis/...-h-dhmosiografos-...pouthele-apo-.../ http://wwu..../einai-...tis.pics.html, http://......./ patra-karnavali-krisi.html http://unvw.inenews.qr/ 190/...-i-dimosioqrafos-......- .... htm. Please check that the links you see on the search results page are the same links as those containing the allegedly illegal content and as those you have submitted in your request. You may be clicking on a link from a search result that redirects you to a page that has already been removed, or you may be seeing a link that is similar but slightly different from the link you have submitted in the complaint form. Please do not send links in the future that you have already submitted to us for deletion". Finally, on 15.10.2012, a request for interim measures was discussed before the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens on 16.5.2012 with G.A.K. ... and A.K.D. ..., during the discussion of which the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, appeared through the power of attorney of lawyer X. D. and filed the written note dated 16.10.2012. On the above request, the decision no. ... of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Injunction Procedure) was issued on 12.11.2012, by which it was accepted as well-founded in substance with respect to all the defendants therein (including, that is, the second of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company) and it was ordered, among other things, the omission in the future of "any reference to the name and person of the applicant on the websites of the first and third defendants, as well as the omission of the fourth defendant to associate in the future, in the search field of its website, the name of the applicant with the words "traveli, transsexual and transvestite" or other defamatory phrases or words". The appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, on 15.11.2012, notified an exact certified copy of the above decision on interim measures to the professional establishment in Greece of the second appellant in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, namely at the registered office of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, which had now been transferred to Amarousio, Attica, on the road ... ... . Therefore, both respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II took note of the operative part of the above decision on interim measures, the first, since it was present through a lawyer at the hearing of the request for interim measures against it by the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II, filed a written note in rebuttal to the claims of the latter and the above service is addressed to it, which took place at its business establishment in Greece, and the second because an exact certified copy of the above decision was served at its registered office and was received by the its competent employees. Furthermore, it was proven that during the discussion of the said request for interim measures, the defendants, the owners - administrators of the websites mentioned above in the reasoning, had already proceeded to delete the aforementioned insulting and defamatory references to the applicant and here appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II. Despite this, the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens accepted as well-founded and in substance the above request with regard to all the defendants, on the grounds that "... nevertheless it was presumed that there continues to be a well-founded risk of insulting the applicant's personality from corresponding postings and comments on the defendants' websites, insofar as they, as blogs to which an unlimited number of users have access, where each of these [user - reader], may respond to the views of the writer, by announcing his own comments on the same blog, which are also readable by all third-party internet users, may [the defendants] accept, either as comments or as keywords in the search field, entries of corresponding offensive content ...". However, despite the service of the above decision on interim measures (on 15.11.2012) on both the defendants in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II and the removal of the personally offensive content for the appellant in the appeal under item I - appellant in the appeal under item II by the owners - administrators of the aforementioned websites, the suggestion and auto-complete services of the search engine "..." continued to display the same, and similar abusive and derogatory references to the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II. Specifically: a) on 16.11.2012 (the day after the service of the above decision on interim measures) when typing the name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T."), the phrases "M. T. gender reassignment", "M. T. man", "M. T. transgender" and "M. T. traveli", while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, on 22.11.2012 when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T.") with the addition of the words "transsexual" and "gender change" the phrases "M. T. man" and "M. T. transsexual" appear in the "Related searches" field, while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, c) on 12.10.2013 when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T.") there is an association with the phrase "M. T. transgender", while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, d) on 17.11.2014, when typing the first name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("..."), the phrases "M. T. was a man" and "M. T. gender change" automatically appear below it, e) on 26.11.2014, when typing the first and last name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T."), there is an association with the phrases "M. T. man" and "M. T. gender change", while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, f) on 2.4.2015, when typing the name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T."), the phrases "M. T. gender change", "M. T. man" and "M. T. was a man" appear in the "Related searches" field, while on the same day (2.4.2015) when typing her name with the addition "gender change" there is an association with the phrase "M. T. man", while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, g) on 6.5.2015, when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II with Latin characters ("...i"), the phrase "M. T. traveli" automatically appears below it, while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her, h) on 11.5.2015, when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II with Latin characters ("..."), the phrase "M. T. traveli", while links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her person, furthermore, when typing her name and surname in Greek characters ("M. T.") on the same date, the phrases "M. T. was a man" and "M. T. man" automatically appear below it, i) on 26.8.2015, when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II with Latin characters ("...y" or "..."), the phrase "M. T. trans", while when typing her name and surname in Greek characters ("M. T." or "... tsel"), the same above phrase ("trans") automatically appears below it, j) on 13.6.2016 when typing the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II ("M.T.") on the main website of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II of a foreign company in the Federal Republic of Germany (........de) automatically appears below it, the phrase "M.  T. was a man", while on the same day (13.6.2016) when typing her name with the addition "was a man" links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her person and k) on 31.8.2016 when typing the name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II ("M. T.") on the main website of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II of a foreign company in the Italian Republic (........it) the phrase "M. T. was a man", while by adding the word "before" to the above-typed surname, the phrase "which journalist of ... was a man" appears in the "Related searches" field, and links are provided to go to websites with offensive content for her person. Therefore, both the respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II - companies for almost four years after the issuance of decision no. 1339/2012 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Procedure for Protective Measures), but also after the service of the lawsuit against them (on 7.5.2015 to the first respondent in the appeal under item I - first appellant in the appeal under item II - a single-member limited liability company and on 12.6.2013 to the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II appeal foreign company - ref. no. ... service report of the bailiff at the Athens Court of First Instance A. N. and no. 6178Β/12.6.2013 similar of the bailiff at the Athens Court of First Instance K. V., respectively). Furthermore, the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II foreign company around the end of 2014, ... proceeded to create a special digital "platform" of complaints, in order for users of the search engine "..." to be able to exercise the right to remove search results, which they consider to be offensive to their personality, because they are abusive, defamatory, etc. In particular, in the relevant posting on the website of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II foreign company, published at the electronic address - https:// support.....com/legal/contract, states, among other things, the following: "The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled in its recent judgment (C - ..., 13 May 2014) that certain users have the right to request search engines to remove specific results for searches that include their name, in cases where the individual's right to have the relevant results removed outweighs the interests related to the search engine. When you make such a request, we balance the rights to the protection of the individual's personal data with the public interest in information and dissemination of information. When assessing your request, we will consider whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there is a public interest in accessing the information. For example, we have the right to deny a request to remove certain information concerning financial fraud, professional negligence, criminal convictions or the public conduct of government officials... In order to consider your request, you must: (a) Identify each result in the results list that you wish to remove by indicating the URL of the web page to which the result leads. (You can retrieve the URL from your browser's address bar after clicking on the search result in question.) (b) Explain why the linked webpage is relevant to you (or, if you are submitting this form on behalf of someone else, why the page is relevant to that person)(c) For each URL, explain why the appearance of that URL as a search result is irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate... If your request concerns more than one result, please provide the URL for each result, along with an explanation of why the appearance of that result in the search results is irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate. We will not be able to process your request without this information...". The appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II, after having ascertained that, despite her continuous harassment of both the appellants in the appeal under item I - appellant companies in the appeal under item II, especially after the service of the interim order and the aforementioned interim measure decision, the above detailed words or phrases offensive to her person (with the possibility of direct access to websites or web pages or blogs, where abusive or defamatory texts about her have been posted), continued to appear in the search engine "...", proceeded to the following actions, utilizing the above-described digital "platform" of complaints - requests: a) on 19.8.2014 she submitted to the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, filed no. 6 - 0718000004608, a request for the removal of specific "URL" addresses, which referred to it with the offensive words and phrases detailed above in the text thereof, and b) on 6.5.2015 (i.e. after approximately one year had passed since the sending of the immediately above-mentioned electronic message - request and while the offensive words and phrases continued to appear in the search engine "..."), it submitted to the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, again, filed no. 0 - 3286000007012, a request for the removal of specific "URL" addresses, which similarly referred to it with the offensive words and phrases detailed above in the text thereof, and on the following day of the submission of the above second electronic request, notified the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, of the 7.5.2015 extrajudicial protest - statement and invitation (served at its professional establishment in Greece, namely at the registered office of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company - ref. no. 1859/7.5.2015 service report of the bailiff at the Athens Court of First Instance A. N.), by which it called on it to immediately remove and delete the entries, words, phrases, texts and electronic addresses referring to it from the search engine "...", and further on 29.6.2015 it submitted to the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II foreign company the no. ... (third) request for the removal of specific "URL" addresses, which referred to her person with the above offensive words and phrases listed in detail in this text. In response to the above requests of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II, the second respondent in the appeal under item I - second appellant in the appeal under item II informed her through the documents of her attorneys dated 10.8.2015 and 1.9.2015 that it has already removed - deleted - blocked specific terms ("words - keywords") and websites in relation to searches based on the name of the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II using of the suggest and auto complete services of the search engine "...". However, despite the above deletions, references offensive to the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II continued to appear in the above search engine after that time, namely during most of the following year 2016, as explained above, with the consequence that the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II was obliged to request again the removal of the insulting phrase ("M. T. was a man"), appearing in the auto complete service with the e-mail message dated 13.6.2016 to the attorney-in-fact of the appellants in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II companies. After this, it is proven that both the defendants in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II, the companies which are jointly responsible for the technical operation and the economic (commercial) exploitation of the search engine "...", through which the suggestion and auto complete services are provided, through their respective competent employees, have damaged the honor and reputation and insulted the personality of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, by directly associating her person with the abusive and insulting words "traveler", "transsexual", "trans" and the phrases "he was a man", "gender change", "which journalist of ... was a man" and "M. T. before". And although the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, states in its General Terms of Service (posted on the website ........gr/intl/ei/policies/terms/regional.html) regarding the use of the search engine "..." that "Certain content appears on our services that does not belong to .... For such content, the sole responsibility lies with the person who makes it available. We may check the content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our policies and may remove or refuse to display content that we reasonably believe violates our policies or the law. However, this does not mean that we control the content, so do not take this control for granted", however ... has the capacity of the controller of personal data, insofar as it processes the said content, stores it, indexes it and makes it available in a certain order of preference to internet users in the context of their search for specific information using the search engine "...".  In this case, the competent employees of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, the foreign company, despite the fact that they duly received knowledge of both the temporary order of the President of the Athens Court of First Instance dated 24.5.2012, and of the order no. ... decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Procedure for Interim Measures), by which it was expressly prohibited from associating in the search engine "..." the name and surname of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II with the words "traveler", "transsexual" and "travesti", as well as with other defamatory phrases or words, for a particularly long period of time (from 2012 to 2016) they chose to ignore and not comply with both the aforementioned temporary order (whose validity and bindingness, in fact, they directly challenged), and the aforementioned decision on interim measures, and continued to associate her name and surname with the specific derogatory and offensive words and phrases, although they were undoubtedly able to distinguish and to foresee that this correlation, according to the lessons of common experience and prevailing social perceptions, objectively offends the personality of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, and they accepted this fact and persisted in their practice, despite the actions to remove it, both by taking the above judicial actions, and by the choice of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II to follow the procedure for submitting complaints - requests through the above digital "platform", in compliance with the relevant instructions. Moreover, as regards the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, it is considered, ... that it proceeded, through its competent employees, to process the content circulating on the internet, which had been indexed, stored and classified by the search engine "..." of the second appellant in the appeal under item I - the second appellant in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, and therefore the personal data contained in this content, in order to exercise its commercial - business activity (provision of advertising services), and therefore it independently attacked the personality of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the appellant in the appeal under item II. In particular, by associating the above words (which functioned as "keywords") with the name of the latter, the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, acting under the orders and instructions of the second respondent in the appeal under item I - the second respondent in the appeal under item II, a foreign company, attempted methodically and systematically to promote its corporate - business purposes, namely the sale of advertising space within the framework of the operation of the above search engine, insofar as through the sale of the "keywords" within the framework of the operation of the search engine to interested third parties, the use of the latter in the Greek market becomes economically profitable and efficient. Therefore, the additional competent employees of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II, a single-member limited liability company, although they also duly received notice of both the temporary order of the President of the Athens Court of First Instance dated 24.5.2012, and of order no. ... decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Procedure for Interim Measures), did not take care of the deletion of the above words and phrases that were derogatory to the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, continued to process the above content using the aforementioned "keywords" associated with the name of the latter, with the aim of selling advertising space for posting advertisements of third-party companies, so that the said advertisements would be displayed to internet users when searching for information about the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, thus becoming recipients of the relevant advertising messages, and therefore the said employees had foreseen the possibility of insulting the latter's personality and had accepted it. In the opinion of this Court, the fact that the legal representatives of the first respondent in the appeal under item I - the appellant, a single-member limited liability company, through the no. 105217/10.11.2017 decision of the Second Single-Member Criminal Court of Athens were declared innocent of the crime of article 232A of the previous Criminal Code (non-compliance with a temporary order or a provision of a court decision, by which the above company was obliged to perform an act, omission or tolerance, which could not be performed by a third party), on the one hand because the full reasoning of the above decision is not presented, so that the reasons for their acquittal can be brought to the attention of this Court, but only an excerpt thereof, and on the other hand because the claim of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II that the acquittal of the legal representatives of the first appellant in the appeal under item I - the first appellant in the appeal under item II is in no way refuted of a single-member limited liability company was the result of an out-of-court settlement between the parties hereto (relating exclusively to the criminal part of the case), within the framework of which the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II received the amount of twenty thousand EUROS (€20,000), which was paid to her by check no. ... of the bank under the name "... S.A." with the date of issue 23.2.2017. Furthermore, the claim of both respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II that they are not responsible for the content of third-party postings on the internet, appearing in the search engine "...", and may proceed to remove specific URL addresses, only if they are notified (with a specific reference) by the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II and only following a specific request to that effect, is unfounded and dismissable, according to the one part regarding non-responsibility for the content of third-party postings on the internet, because the management of information (primarily by third parties) circulating on the internet within the framework of the operation of the search engine "..." constitutes, as far as personal data is concerned, "processing of personal data", with specific obligations of the "processing bodies", ... according to the other part regarding the activation of any of their obligations only upon a specific request by the interested person and indication by him of the specific URL addresses, because both the defendants in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II - have a prior obligation to immediately and without conditions or external conditions comply with the operative part of both the temporary order of the President of the Service of the Athens Court of First Instance dated 24.5.2012, and the order no. ... decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Precautionary Measures Procedure), from the moment each of them was duly served, and they cannot unilaterally make the fulfillment of their obligations under the law and court orders and decisions dependent on any procedure determined by them or on other conditions, which, even if they exist, non-compliance with them in no way entails adverse consequences for the interested parties (in this case the appellant in the appeal under item I - the appellant in the appeal under item II) and in any case does not negate the obligations arising from the law or from the court decision. It should be noted that the full and immediate compliance of the respondents in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II to the insurance parties' obligations arising from the above temporary order and the subsequently issued decision is undoubtedly technically feasible, given that they have the technological infrastructure and specialized technical and scientific personnel to identify not only the specific "keywords", which in this case are objectively offensive and derogatory to the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - appellant in the appeal under item II, but also any related word, phrase or expression, as also required by the no. ... decision of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Injunction Procedure) with an explicit reference in its operative part ("... other defamatory phrases or words ..."), for this reason it is completely irrelevant that the "keywords" displayed through the suggestion and auto-complete services, as related to the search terms entered by each internet user, are automatically adjusted using a mathematical algorithm, because the criteria for applying the said algorithm are determined exclusively by their competent employees, with the result that they become responsible for the manner and means they use in order to provide the said services to the search engine "... >" and to exploit it commercially in the most profitable way. After that, as a result of the above-detailed illegal and culpable conduct of the added employees of both the appellants in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II, the gender (and consequently the sexual identity) of the appellant in the appeal under item I - appellant in the appeal under item II was questioned for a particularly long period of time, suspicions were created against her that she is a man and has undergone gender reassignment surgery, various named and anonymous insulting and defamatory comments were made against her on the internet and the esteem that she had enjoyed until then from her social and professional environment was significantly reduced, in relation to her age, education (student at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), her social and economic situation, taking into account her professional status as a journalist, working at a national radio and television station scope and generally known to the public, while, furthermore, she was psychologically shaken, ceased to be consistent in attending her courses at the Medical School and was forced to attend psychotherapy sessions, in order to deal with the particularly serious psychological consequences of the above continuous (from 2012 to 2016) attack on her personality in her personal and social life, and as a result she suffered moral damage, for the restoration of which she is entitled to financial compensation (articles 57 and 59 of the Civil Code, in conjunction with the provisions of articles 914 et seq., 932 of the Civil Code).  Therefore, the Court of First Instance, which accepted the same and ruled that both the appellants in the appeal under item I - the respondents in the appeal under item II are jointly and severally obliged to pay the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II financial compensation for moral damage due to the analytically described in the reasoning of this present illegal and culpable conduct of their employees, as it is specified in detail for each respondent in the appeal under item I - the appellant in the appeal under item II, did not err in the interpretation and application of the provisions of articles 57, 59, 914 et seq., 932 of the Civil Code and 68 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the assessment of the evidence, and those who argue the contrary second reason (on the lack of passive legitimacy of the first appellant in the appeal under item I - the first respondent in the appeal under item II of a single-member limited liability company) and the third ground (regarding the failure to establish the liability of both the respondents in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II of the companies) of the appeal under item II are unfounded and must be dismissed. Moreover, with the first ground of appeal under item I, the appellant in this appeal complains that the Court of First Instance erred in calculating the amount of the financial compensation awarded to her for moral damage, violating the principle of proportionality, whereas, if it had correctly assessed the circumstances of the specific case, it should have awarded her the entire requested amount of two hundred and fifty thousand EUROS (€250,000) as financial compensation for moral damage and not only the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000), which it ultimately awarded. However, it is considered that the Court of First Instance took into account, when measuring the amount of the monetary compensation to be awarded to the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, all the special circumstances of the case at hand, namely the type of insult (insult to the personality via the internet through the use of offensive and derogatory "keywords", associated with the person of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, when using the search engine "..." and with the possibility of direct access to websites or blogs, where the specific offensive content has been posted), the duration of the insult (for four years, from the year 2012 to the year 2106), the means of committing the insult and its effectiveness (the aforementioned search engine, which is used worldwide by all internet users), the degree the fault of the competent employees of both the appellants in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II (consisting in particular of their deliberate and persistent refusal to comply with the operative part of the interim order of the President of the Service of the Athens Court of First Instance dated 24.5.2012 and the decision no. ... of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens), the financial situation of the parties (in particular the financial soundness of the appellants in the appeal under item I - the appellants in the appeal under item II, members of a multinational group of companies with continuous profitable activity at a global level), the social position of the appellant in the appeal under item I - the appellant in the appeal under item II (a well-known journalist, working in a pan-Hellenic radio and television station and a student at the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) and the lessons of common experience, and therefore the award for this cause of the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000) does not exceed the extreme limits of the discretion of the Court of First Instance in this regard and there is no case of violation of the principle of proportionality, according to what is analytically explained above under point D of the aforementioned major consideration. Consequently, the Court of First Instance, which awarded the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II the above amount as monetary compensation for moral damage, did not err in the interpretation and application of the provisions of articles 57, 59 and 932 of the Civil Code and the assessment of the evidence, and the first ground of appeal under item I, which argues the contrary, is unfounded and must be rejected. Finally, the appellant in the appeal under item I - respondent in the appeal under item II submitted, through the motions filed before this Court on 4.12.2019 (in the form of an additional ground of appeal), a request pursuant to the provision of article 525 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure for the award of default interest from the day following the hearing of 15.1.2013 with G.A.K. ... and A.K.D. ... lawsuit on 22.9.2016, namely on 23.9.2016, until full payment of the total amount requested, otherwise on any amount that may be awarded by this Court, otherwise on the awarded amount of thirty thousand EUROS (30,000 €). On this request, the following is stated: According to the provision of article 525 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure "It is permitted in the second-instance trial to submit with the motions applications for ancillary claims that arose after the hearing during which the contested decision was issued or applications for the restoration of things to the situation that existed before the execution of the decision". A "subsequent" claim is understood to be one that is a follow-up to the claim, which has been invoked in the claim document and constitutes, in substantive law, a prerequisite for the genesis of the first one. Consequently, the claim for interest of the claimant with the capital claim is also considered "ancillary" (OlAP 10/2007............. "). In the present case, although the additional ground of appeal, as discussed in the proposals submitted before this Court on 4.12.2019 by the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, would, as such, be rejected as inadmissible, because according to the express provision of article 520 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure with regard to the regular procedure (but also according to the new provision of article 591 par. 1, paragraph g' of the Code of Civil Procedure with regard to the special procedures), additional grounds of appeal are only filed with a separate pleading and not with the proposals, however, in reality, through the above proposals, an independent request for the adjudication of an ancillary claim is admissibly introduced. default interest under the exceptional provision of article 525 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in accordance with the above, this request must be accepted as well-founded and in substance and default interest must be awarded against the defendants in the appeal under item I - appellants in the appeal under item II, jointly and severally liable, on the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000) awarded by the appealed decision from the day following the service of this notice to each of the above companies (which constitutes a notice of payment within the meaning of the provision of article 340 of the Civil Code) and until full payment. After this, it must: A. reject the appeal under item I in its entirety as unfounded, ... be partially accepted as well-founded and in essence the appellant's independent request for the award of default interest, introduced in the proposals filed before this Court on 4.12.2019, to award default interest against the appellants, jointly and severally liable, on the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000) awarded by the appealed decision from the day following its service on each of them and until full payment ... and B. to reject the appeal under item II in its entirety as unfounded ...". With the first of the grounds of appeal, the appellants attribute to the contested decision that it fell under the provisions of article 559 no. 8, 1 otherwise 19 CPC deficiencies, arguing that, by accepting that ... is responsible for the (alleged) processing of the respondent's personal data carried out by it and that, consequently, it is liable towards her for the alleged infringement of her personality, which occurred with the aforementioned processing, on the one hand, it took into account things that were not proposed (as it analytically explains under B, par. 13-14 of the appeal), and on the other hand, it violated directly and in any case indirectly the substantive law provisions of articles 2(d) (g) and (h), 3 II, III (a) and (b), 4 I, 12 II, III and IV and 13 of Law 2472/1997, as well as the provisions of articles 2, 6, 12 and 14 of Directive 95/46/EC, in combination with the provisions of articles 57,59, 914 et seq. and 932 of the Civil Code and as the provisions of the said Directive, which were introduced into the Greek legal system by law 2472/1997, have been interpreted and applied by the cited decisions of the Court of Appeal in the cases ... and ... and that, for this reason, it must be annulled. Furthermore, with the third of the grounds of appeal, the appellants attribute to the contested decision that it committed the defect under article 559 no. 14, by considering that the action is definite and admissible with respect to the companies sued therein and rejecting the relevant claim of the appellants, while it should have rejected it as indefinite and inadmissible. According to the provision of article 559 no. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, an appeal is permitted if a rule of substantive law was violated. The rule of law is violated if it is not applied, while the actual conditions for its application are met, or if it is applied while these conditions are not met, as well as if it is applied incorrectly, and the violation is manifested either by false interpretation, or by poor application, that is, by incorrect application. This reason is used to review the errors of the court in assessing the law underlying the action or the claims of the parties, as well as legal errors in investigating the merits of the dispute.  That is, it is checked whether the claim, objection, etc., was correctly rejected as unlawful or whether, in violation of a substantive rule of law, it was accepted as lawful or rejected or accepted on the merits (AP 565/2024). In the event that the court ruled on the merits of the case, the violation of a substantive rule of law is judged in view of the facts, which the court of the substance unverifiably accepted as proven and their subordination to the law, and this ground of appeal is established if the factual assumptions of the decision make the violation apparent. This occurs when the court applied the law, even though the facts it accepted as proven were not sufficient for its application or did not apply the law even though the facts it accepted were sufficient for its application, as well as when it incorrectly classified the facts in a provision to which they do not fall (OlAP 3/2020, OlAP 2/2019, OlAP 6/2019). Furthermore, according to the provision of article 559, paragraph 19 of the Code of Civil Procedure, an appeal is permitted if the decision has no legal basis and in particular if it has no justifications at all or has contradictory or insufficient justifications, on a matter that has a substantial influence on the outcome of the trial. From this provision, which constitutes a sanction for the violation of article 93, paragraph 3, subs. a of the Constitution, which requires that every judicial decision must be specifically and thoroughly reasoned, it follows that the ground for annulment provided for therein is established when no factual facts are set out at all in the minor sentence of the judicial reasoning ('lack of reasoning'), or when the facts set out do not cover all the elements required based on the actual nature of the applicable rule of substantive law for the occurrence of the legal consequence declared or its denial ('insufficient reasoning'), or when they contradict each other ('contradictory reasoning') (OlAP 1/1999, AP 814/2024, AP 782/2023, AP 667/2023). In particular, there is an insufficiency of reasoning when the decision does not clearly state the facts that are either legally necessary for establishing, in the specific case, the substantive law provision that was applied, or that preclude its application, and not when there are deficiencies in the analysis, weighing and generally in the assessment of the evidence, provided that the conclusion from this assessment is set out clearly and completely (OlAP 15/2006, AP 814/2024, AP 1284/2023). Moreover, the legally necessary content of the minor proposition is determined by the applicable substantive law rule, the factual basis of which must be fully covered by the assumptions of the decision in its evidentiary conclusion, and no doubts must be left. That is, only what has been proven or not proven needs to be set out in the decision in full and clearly, and not why it has been proven or not proven (OlAP 20/2005, AP 90/2023, AP 1887/2022, AP 38/2022). Furthermore, from the combination of the provisions of articles 111 § 2, 118 no. 4 and 216 § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, it follows that the statement of claim must contain a clear statement of the facts which legally establish the claim and justify its filing by the plaintiff against the defendant, a precise description of the subject matter of the dispute and a specific request. The statement of facts in the claim, which must be those that are legally sufficient and necessary for the establishment of the right, the protection of which is sought, and which must be stated with such clarity that they individualize the disputed legal relationship and leave no doubt about the claim arising from them, is necessary to enable the court to judge the legal validity of the claim and order the appropriate evidence, and for the defendant to be able to defend himself against the claim based on them with counter-evidence or objection (AP 5/2020, AP 1424/2017). The insufficiency of the facts that constitute the historical basis of the claim and are linked to the assessment of the applicable rule of substantive law, is characterized as legal vagueness and is reviewed by the appellate ground under number 1 of article 559 of the Code of Civil Procedure as a violation of a rule of substantive law, since the court of the merits ultimately ruled that the claim was definite, being satisfied with fewer or different elements than those required by law (AP 5/2020). The same reason is also reviewed by the court of the merits in ruling that the claim was indefinite, requiring more elements for its foundation than those required by law for the foundation of the substantive right on which it is based. This is again a violation of a rule of substantive law in terms of the finding of the alleged legal vagueness of the claim (AP 18/2018). Therefore, the vagueness that is linked to the legal assessment of the applicable rule of substantive law is legal. On the contrary, the quantitative or qualitative vagueness of the claim, which exists when all the elements required by law to support its request are not set out in it, the facts, that is, the incidents that constitute the historical basis of the claim and determine the subject matter of the proceedings, creates grounds for appeal under article 559 no. 8 and 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In particular, the ground for appeal under article 559 no. 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure is established if the court considered the claim to be definite and lawful, taking into account facts necessary for its foundation and the description of the subject matter of the proceedings that are not set out in it, or if it rejected the claim as indefinite or unlawful, disregarding facts set out for its foundation and the description of the subject matter of the proceedings, which are adequately set out in it, while the ground for appeal under article 559 no. 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a ground for appeal (according to the immediately above provision, an appeal is permitted if the court, contrary to the law, declared or did not declare invalidity, deprivation of rights or inadmissibility and concerns invalidities, deprivations of rights and inadmissibility from procedural law only, while invalidities from substantive law are controlled through the reason for the number - OLAP 2/2001, AP 1419/2023, AP 350/2017, 1496/2017), is established (especially with regard to the issue of the indefiniteness of the claim) if the court, despite the insufficient presentation of the elements necessary to support the claim, considered it definite, considering that these are adequately presented or if, despite the sufficient presentation of these elements, it rejected it as indefinite (AP 261/2020, AP 18/2018, AP 1487/2017). It should be noted, however, that the completeness or otherwise of the claim in terms of the presentation of the facts that constitute its historical basis is assessed by the court of the merits, in combination with the statements made in the claim, and the appellate review of the indefiniteness of the claim is based on this assessment of the claim by the court of the merits (AP 782/2024, AP 141/2023, AP 1780/2022, AP 1017/2022, AP 1181/2021, AP 335/2020, AP 1262/2019), without the invocation of the rule of law being an element of the claim, as follows from the provisions of articles 216 and 118 of the Code of Civil Procedure, because the discovery of the rules of law and the subordination of the of facts, which the party invokes, belong exclusively to the court, which acts ex officio and which is not bound even if a rule of law is invoked by the party. For this reason, moreover, if the legal conclusion of the court is different from that put forward by the parties, there is no ground for appeal under article 559 no. 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in view of the fact that the court does not take into account things not proposed, but simply subjects those proposed by the parties to the appropriate rule of law (AP 1394/2012). Moreover, it follows from the provision of Article 68 of the Code of Civil Procedure that for the legitimacy to conduct a specific trial, it is sufficient in principle for the plaintiff to allege that he and the defendant are the subjects of the disputed substantive legal relationship, that is, that he is the bearer of the disputed right being exercised and the defendant of the corresponding obligation. In order to verify the legitimacy, the court must be satisfied with the allegations contained in the introductory document. In other words, only the plaintiff's allegation that he is the bearer of the right and the defendant the bearer of the corresponding obligation or that they are the subjects of the legal relationship, which is brought for judgment, is sufficient. If the claims in the action do not justify such a connection between the plaintiff and the defendant, the action will be illegitimate and will be rejected as inadmissible. However, if the claims in the lawsuit justify the above link but the untruth of these claims is proven, then the lawsuit will be dismissed not for lack of legitimacy, but as unfounded due to the non-existence of the disputed right or obligation. Which persons are - as a rule - the bearers of specific rights or obligations is defined by the substantive law that allows the exercise of the action. Consequently, the defendant's alleged lack of active or passive legal standing does not constitute an objection, but a denial of the basis of the action (AP 783/2021, AP 266/2021, AP 260/2020, AP 59/2019). The appellate review of legal standing is carried out with the ground of appeal from no. 1 of article 559 of the Code of Civil Procedure, because according to the Code of Civil Procedure, the legal standing of the parties is understood as the authority to conduct a specific trial for a specific legal relationship. Therefore, because substantive law determines the subject matter of the legal relationship and the entities, any erroneous judgment of the trial court on the issue of the legal standing of a party means that this error is due to a violation of a rule of substantive law (AP 483/2023, AP 266/2021, AP 260/2020, AP 59/2019). Consequently, the court's erroneous judgment as to whether or not these conditions are met establishes the ground of appeal of number 1 of article 559 of the Code of Civil Procedure [and not that of no.  14 of the same Code, which arises only when the application does not set out the elements that establish the legitimacy and justify the legitimate interest in exercising it] - (AP 1542/2022, AP 1278/2017, AP 632/2014). Moreover, with the provisions of articles 57 and 59 of the Civil Code, personality and by extension the value of the human being are protected, as an individual right guaranteed by article 2, paragraph 1 of the Constitution (AP 1735/2009), and personality constitutes a network of goods that make up the person's existence and are inextricably linked to him, and such are, among others, the honor and reputation of every human being, and honor is the esteem that the individual enjoys in society based on the moral value that he has due to his compliance with his legal and moral obligations, while reputation is the esteem that the individual enjoys in society, based on his social value, as a result of his qualities and abilities for the fulfillment of his particular social works or his profession. Conditions for the protection of personality, whose unlawful and at the same time culpable insult constitutes a more specific form of tort, in which case the provisions of articles 914, 919, 920, 932 of the Civil Code are applied in combination, are, in accordance with the provisions of the above articles, a) the existence of an insult to personality by an act or omission of another, which disrupts one or more manifestations of the physical, mental, spiritual and social individuality of the injured party at the time of the insult, b) the insult must be unlawful, which occurs when it is done without right or on the basis of a right, which, however, is either of lesser importance within the framework of the legal order, or is exercised under circumstances that make its exercise abusive, within the meaning of articles 281 of the Civil Code and 25 par. 3 of the Constitution, c) culpability (fault) of the offender, when it comes to in particular for the award of monetary compensation, due to moral damage, due to the illegal insult of personality (OlAP 2/2008, AP 239/2023, AP 292/2020, AP 271/2012), manifested either in the form of fraud, or in the form of negligence, which exists when the diligence required in transactions is not paid (article 330 par. 2 of the Civil Code) and d) the occurrence of moral damage to the injured party, which is causally linked to the illegal and culpable insult. Therefore, unlawful insult to personality is also created by a criminally punishable act, as occurs when the person's honor and reputation are insulted by insulting expressions or by defamatory or, even more so, slanderous allegations, within the meaning of articles 361-363 of the Criminal Code (AP 239/2023, AP 292/2020, AP 1116/2019, AP 1394/2017, AP 726/2015, AP 1216/2014, AP 1230/2014). Furthermore, defamation of personality can also be committed via the internet by posting offensive comments or publications on websites (web sites, which consist of several web pages) or blogs, which are easily accessible through the so-called "search engines" (AP 1425/2017, AP 1701/2013). Moreover, internet search engines, in their basic form, do not (in principle) create new, original content, but simply indicate where it is possible to search for already existing content, thus providing a "hyperlink" to the website, which contains the searched terms. The search results displayed by the search engine on the Internet do not come from an instant search of the entire world wide web, but are collected from content that has previously been processed by the search engine on the Internet, using three (3) types of software for its operation, search software (spider software), index software (index software) and query software (query software). This means that the search engine has retrieved content from existing websites, web pages and blogs and has copied, analyzed and indexed this content on its own devices, from which, based on the queries of Internet users, the information is retrieved. If the originating websites, web pages and blogs contain personal data, then the content in question contains such data, which raises the issue of the application of both national and EU legislation on the protection of personal data. In particular, the issue in Greece was initially regulated by Law 2472/1997 "Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data" (which was in force at the time relevant to the case at hand), which was issued in compliance with the European Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981, ratified by Greece by Law 2068/1992, and with Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union of 24.10.1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. This law aims, in accordance with the provision of Article 1 thereof, to establish the conditions for the processing of personal data in order to protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals, and in particular privacy. The provision of Article 2 of the above law, as it was in force at the time in question, provides the meaning of the crucial definitions related to the specific regulations for the collection and processing of personal data. In particular, it is defined that: "For the purposes of this law, the following are understood as: a) "Personal data", any information relating to the data subject ... b) "Sensitive data", data relating to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, social welfare and sexual life, data relating to criminal prosecutions or convictions, as well as membership in associations of persons related to the above, c) "Data subject", the natural person to whom the data refer and whose identity is known or can be ascertained, that is to say, he can be identified directly or indirectly, in particular on the basis of an identity number or on the basis of one or more specific elements characterising his existence from a physical, biological, mental, economic, cultural, political or social point of view, d) "Processing of personal data" ("processing"), any operation or set of operations which is carried out by the State or a legal person governed by public or private law or an association of persons or a natural person with or without the aid of automated methods and is applied to personal data, such as collection, recording, organisation, retention or storage, modification, extraction, use, transmission, dissemination or any other form of disposal, association or combination, interconnection, blocking (locking), deletion, destruction, e) "Personal data file" ("file"), any structured set of personal data, which are accessible on the basis of specific criteria, f) "Linking", a form of processing consisting in the possibility of associating data in a file with data in a file or files held by another or other controllers or held by the same controller for another purpose, g) "Controller", anyone who determines the purposes and means of processing personal data, such as a natural or legal person, public authority or service or any other organization. Where the purposes and means of processing are determined by national or Community law, the controller or the specific criteria for his selection shall be determined by national or Community law, h) "Processor" means any person who processes personal data on behalf of a controller, such as a natural or legal person, public authority or agency or any other body, i) "Third party" means any natural or legal person, public authority or agency or any other body, other than the data subject, the controller and the persons authorised to process personal data, acting under the direct supervision of or on behalf of the controller, j) "Recipient" means the natural or legal person, public authority or agency or any other body to which the data are disclosed or transmitted, whether or not a third party, k) "Consent" of the data subject, any freely given, explicit and specific indication of his or her wishes, expressed in a clear and informed manner, by which the data subject, after having been informed, signifies his or her agreement to the processing of personal data concerning him or her. This information shall include at least information on the purpose of the processing, the data or categories of data concerned by the processing, the recipients or categories of recipients of the personal data, as well as the name, surname and address of the controller and of his or her representative, if any. Consent may be revoked at any time, without retroactive effect, l) "Authority", the Personal Data Protection Authority established in Chapter D of this law. The provision of Article 3, paragraph 1 of the same law states that: "The provisions of this law apply to the wholly or partly automated processing as well as to the non-automated processing of personal data, which are included or are to be included in a file".  The provision of article 4 of this, as amended by article 20, paragraphs 1 and 2 of Law 3471/2006, states that: "In order to be lawfully processed, personal data must: a) Be collected in a fair and lawful manner for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and be processed fairly and lawfully in view of these purposes; b) Be relevant, appropriate, and not more than is required in each case in view of the purposes of the processing; c) Be accurate and, where necessary, be updated; d) Be kept in a form that allows the identification of their subjects only during the period required, at the discretion of the Authority, for the achievement of the purposes of their collection and processing... (paragraph 1). Compliance with the provisions of the previous paragraph is the responsibility of the controller... (paragraph 2)". By the provision of article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2 thereof, as per sec. c' of par. 2 was amended by article 34 par. 1 of Law 2915/2001, stipulating that: "Processing of personal data is permitted only when the data subject has given his consent. (par. 1). Exceptionally, processing is permitted without consent, when: ....e) The processing is absolutely necessary for the satisfaction of the legitimate interest pursued by the controller or the third party or third parties to whom the data are communicated and provided that this clearly outweighs the rights and interests of the persons to whom the data refer and their fundamental freedoms are not affected (par. 2). Article 22 par. 1 to 4 of the same law 2472/1997 provides for criminal sanctions for anyone who fails to notify the Authority, pursuant to article 6 thereof, of the establishment and operation of a file or any change in the terms and conditions of granting the provided for in paragraph 3 of article 7 of the permit (paragraph 1), whoever, in violation of article 7 thereof, maintains a file without a permit or in violation of the terms and conditions of the Authority's permit (paragraph 2), whoever, in violation of article 8 thereof, interconnects files without notifying the Authority (paragraph 3), whoever, without right, intervenes in any way in a personal data file or obtains knowledge of such data or removes, alters, damages, destroys, processes, transmits, announces, makes them accessible to unauthorized persons or allows such persons to obtain knowledge of such data or exploits them in any way (paragraph 4). In paragraph 1 of article 23 thereof, entitled "civil liability", it is stipulated that: "A natural or legal person of private law who, in violation of this law, causes property damage, is obliged to fully compensation, if it did not cause moral damage, is obliged to pay monetary compensation. Liability also exists when the liable party should have known of the possibility of harm to another". It follows from the above provisions that, in the event of a breach of the provisions on the protection of personal data, the provisions of the above article 23 of Law 2472/1997 and the corresponding article of Community Directive 95/46/EC apply, from which, in combination with the correspondingly applied, as mentioned above, provisions of articles 57, 59, 299 and 932 of the Civil Code, it follows that, in the event that a natural or legal person, in breach of the provisions of the above law, causes moral harm to the subject of the personal data, the liability of the former for financial compensation to the latter is an objective wrong and presupposes: a) conduct (act or omission) that violates the provisions of Law 2472/1997 or (and) of the regulatory acts of the Personal Data Protection Authority issued under its authority, b) moral harm, c) causal link between the conduct and the moral harm and d) fault, i.e. knowledge or culpable ignorance on the one hand of the facts constituting the violation and on the other hand of the possibility of moral harm occurring. The existence of fault is presumed and, therefore, the person who violates the said provisions, in order to be exempted from his liability towards the subject of personal data, who suffered moral harm from the violation, has the burden of proving that he was culpably unaware of the fundamental facts of his fault, in accordance with the express provision of article 23 par. 2 of the aforementioned Directive (AP 1422/2021, AP 1740/2013, AP 637/2013). As far as it concerns EU legislation on the protection of personal data, the issue was initially brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which was called upon to rule on the issue of the application of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24/15 October 1995 "On the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data" [which was replaced by Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 "On the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation, which applies from 25.5.2018 and onwards in accordance with the provision of Article 94(1) thereof)] to providers of internet search engine services, following a preliminary ruling from the Audencia Nacional (Spain). In particular, a fundamental question addressed by the aforementioned Court [D.E.E. - JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber) in the case of ... Spain SL and .... v ... de ... (...) and M. C. G.] is whether the activity of a search engine consisting of locating information published or uploaded on the internet by third parties, automatically indexing it, temporarily storing it and, finally, making it available to internet users in a certain order of preference, must be characterised as "processing of personal data", within the meaning of the provision of Article 2(b) of Directive 95/46, when that information includes personal data. ... Spain and .... argued that this activity of search engines cannot be classified as data processing, since they (search engines) use the information accessible on the internet in its entirety, without distinguishing between personal data and other information, and that the operator of a search engine cannot be regarded as the "controller" of that processing, since it has no knowledge of the data in question and no control over them. The court referred, in principle, to its previous case-law (judgment in Lindqvist, C-101/01, paragraph 25), which held that the act of posting personal data on an internet page must be regarded as "processing" within the meaning of Article 2(b) of Directive 95/46. It then accepted that the data processed by search engines also include personal data, while the operations carried out by a search engine operator, namely the automated research and retrieval of information on the Internet and then the indexing, storage and making them available to users in the form of lists of search results, constitute the processing of personal data (paragraphs 26-28 of the judgment). This finding is not invalidated by the fact that the data are already published on the Internet or that they concern information that has already been published as such in the media (paragraph 30 of the judgment). Furthermore, the Court ruled on whether or not the search engine operator should be considered as a "controller" of the personal data, in accordance with Article 2(d) of Directive 95/46. In particular, while the Advocate General argued in this regard that search engine service providers do not exercise control over the data included on third-party websites nor do they have any connection with the content of third-party websites, on which personal data may be present, so that they can be considered to determine the purpose and means of the processing and, consequently, cannot fulfil the obligations incumbent on the controller, in accordance with the provisions of Articles 6, 7 and 8 of Directive 95/46, and therefore should not be considered to have this capacity (Opinion of the Advocate General in Case C-..., paragraphs 84-90), the Court did not accept this argument, but held that the search engine operator determines the purposes and means of carrying out the activity of the search engine and, therefore, the processing of personal data that it carries out. This means that it must be classified as the "controller" of this processing, in accordance with Article 2(d) of Directive 95/46/EC (paragraph 33 of the judgment). In this regard, the Court stated that the processing of data by search engines differs from the activity of website publishers which consists in posting such data on a web page and complements this activity. This is because search engines make it possible to systematically review the information available on the Internet concerning a person and to form a detailed profile of the data subject. Therefore, the activity of the search engine may infringe the right to privacy for different reasons than the activity of website publishers (paragraphs 35-38). Furthermore, with regard to the territorial scope of Directive 95/46, the decision accepted that there is an inextricable link between the activity of the search engine, which is exploited by ....  and the activity of ... Spain, which constitutes the main part of the commercial activity of the ... group in Spain, so that the latter must be regarded as an establishment of the former, in the context of whose activities the processing of personal data takes place and the answer given, therefore, by the Court to the first preliminary question, point (a), submitted, is that Article 4(1)(a) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that the processing of personal data takes place in the context of the activities of an establishment which the controller has in the territory of a Member State, within the meaning of that provision, where the operator of the search engine establishes in a given Member State a branch or subsidiary for the purpose of promoting and selling the advertising space which is made available within the framework of the search engine and which carries out an activity directed at the residents of that Member State (paragraph 60 of the judgment). Furthermore, the Court ruled on the question whether the operator of a search engine is required to remove from the list of results displayed following a search by a person links to websites published by third parties containing information relating to that person, even if that information has not been previously or simultaneously deleted from those websites. The judgment took into account the fact that it is very easy for information published on a website to be reproduced on other websites, while those responsible for publishing it are not always subject to EU law. For this reason, effective and complete protection of data subjects could not be ensured, as the Court accepted, if the latter were required to obtain, in principle or in parallel with search engines, the deletion of data relating to them by the websites on which it is published (paragraph 84). Subsequently, however, the Court examined the provision of Article 12(b) of Directive 95/46, according to which the data subject has the right to obtain from the controller the rectification, erasure or blocking of data whose processing does not comply with the provisions of the Directive, in particular because of the incompleteness or inaccuracy of the data. According to the CJEU, the incompatibility with the provisions of the Directive may be inferred not only from the inaccuracy of the data, but also, in particular, from the fact that they are inadequate, irrelevant to the matter at hand and excessive in relation to the purposes of the processing, that they are not updated or that they are kept for a period exceeding the necessary duration, unless such retention is required for historical, statistical or scientific purposes (paragraph 92). The Court then, expanding its reasoning, accepted that if, following a request from the data subject pursuant to Article 12(b) of Directive 95/46, it is established that the display, in the list of results resulting from a search based on the name of the data subject, of links to web pages lawfully published by third parties containing (even) truthful information concerning that data subject is, at present, incompatible with the aforementioned Article 6(1)(c) to (e), on the ground that that information, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, appears inappropriate, is not or has ceased to be relevant to the matter in question or appears excessive in relation to the purposes of the processing at issue carried out by the operator of a search engine, the information at issue and the links at issue which are included in the above list of results must be deleted (paragraph no. 94). In fact, it was held that the lawful nature of data processing must exist throughout the entire period during which it takes place (paragraph no. 95). And it is also clear that the data subject has the right to request that the information relating to his person cease to be linked, at present, to his name through the list of results, which results from a search carried out on this basis (paragraph no. 96). Further weighing the rights of the data subject, as guaranteed by Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, with the economic interest of the operator of the search engine, the Court accepted that the rights of the former prevail not only over the latter, but also over the public interest in obtaining this information (which in the case it considered was true) after a search, based on the name and surname of the subject in question (paragraph no. 97), while the only exception that can negate the primacy of the right of the data subject is the case where the data subject plays an important role in public life, such as when it is a person in the news (paragraph no. 97), noting again that these legal assumptions of the aforementioned Court concerned true information, and are even more so when the information is inaccurate and there is no question of negating the primacy of the right. of the data subject and the public's interest in obtaining the information (hence, "digital forgetting" is crucial and urgent). Based on the above legal assumptions and the above review of the contested decision, the first and third grounds of appeal raised by the appellants are to be rejected as unfounded, and, in particular, insofar as: a) by the second instance court ruling, by the contested decision and by its aforementioned reasoning and assumptions, that ... is responsible for the processing of the respondent's personal data, which (processing) is carried out for the needs of the operation of the search engine (...) and the suggestion and auto-complete functions provided by it and, also, that it is jointly responsible for the unjustified failure to delete the reprehensible information to the detriment of the respondent-plaintiff, and consequently is passively entitled to the action, judging in the substance of the case, did not violate the rules of law that it applied [substantive law provisions of articles 2(d) (g) and (h), 3 II, III (a) and (b), 4 I, 12 II, III and IV and 13 of Law 2472/1997, as well as the provisions of articles 2, 6, 12 and 14 of Directive 95/46/EC) in combination with the provisions of articles 57,59, 914 et seq. and 932 of the Civil Code), in view of the facts that it unquestionably accepted as proven, which it correctly subjected to the law, thus not establishing this reason (article 559 no. 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure), but neither from article 559 no. 8, in view of the fact that the court did not take into account in this case things that were not proposed, but simply subjected those that were proposed by the parties to the appropriate rule of law. Furthermore, the reasons for the decision are not contradictory or insufficient with regard to this issue, in relation to the specifics of the action and the passive legality of the first appellant-defendant, which exerts a substantial influence on the outcome of the trial [noting that the application for the action contained all the elements for its assessment, with regard to the passive legality of the defendant companies, both the foreign (based in the U.S.) company under the name "...." (already "..."), and the domestic (based in Amarousio, Attica) single-member limited liability company under the name "... ... ", which, according to the application for the action, is a subsidiary (by 100% participation percentage) of the aforementioned foreign company, both of which provide (albeit of a different nature) form) internet services in Greece using a special technological infrastructure], while the second-instance court ruled by sovereign authority on the legal basis of the action and, subsequently, on the facts of the case based on all the evidentiary material and its unaudited assessment thereof, thus not establishing the ground of appeal under article 559 no. 19 of the Code of Civil Procedure. With the second of the grounds of appeal, the appellants argue that, by holding that the general and indefinite request submitted, according to their claims, by the respondent for the deletion of the objectionable information without specifying the electronic addresses-links (URL) where it appeared was sufficient and that this request was lawful, as well as that its violation created liability against the appellant companies (... and ...), it directly, and in any case indirectly, violated the provisions referred to in the appeal [of article 2 (d) and (g) of law 2472/1997 in conjunction with article 13 par. 1 of presidential decree 131/2003], and in general the relevant EU and domestic legislation. In particular, it ultimately claims that (no. 35, pp. 51-52 of the appeal) "First, by rejecting the allegations raised by the appellants, that for the activation of their statutory obligations a special and specific request from the respondent was required that would identify the links to be deleted through their electronic addresses (URL), it violated the substantive law provisions of articles 12 and 13 of law 2472/1997 and the corresponding provisions of articles 12 and 14 of Directive 95/46/EC (see paras 30-31) and Second, by accepting that it was technically possible for the appellants to comply with the provisional order and interim measure decision invoked by it, although compliance with the orders issued by them, due to their generality and vagueness, made it necessary to install a filtering system for all information circulating on the internet, which is illegal, violated the substantive provisions of the aforementioned Directives and the relevant provisions of domestic legislation, in particular the Presidential Decree.  131/2003, and Law 2472/1992 and Law 3471/2006, as well as Articles 8 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (see para. 32-33). In principle, in relation to the appellants' invocation of Presidential Decree 131/2003, this ground of appeal is based on an incorrect premise and, therefore, is to be rejected as irrelevantly raised, since it is expressly stated (back of page 21 and page 22 of the contested decision) that this (as above Presidential Decree) does not apply in this case. Moreover, as has been held and expressly stated in the operative part of the C?... judgment of the Court of Justice, "The Court rules.....3. "Articles 12(b) and 14(a) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to protect the rights provided for in those provisions and provided that the conditions laid down therein are in fact met, the operator of a search engine is required to remove from the list of results displayed following a search carried out on the basis of a person's name, links to web pages published by third parties containing information relating to that person, and in the event that that name or that information has not been previously or simultaneously deleted from the aforementioned web pages, that obligation applying even where the publication of the information in question on those web pages is itself lawful", and even more so where the information is not lawful and inaccurate. [It is noted that this issue was once again raised by the P.E.C., in relation to the GDPR, which repealed Directive 95/46 as of 25 May 2018 and concerns a period of time subsequent to the case at hand, but includes provisions related to it (such as Article 12(b) of Directive 95/46) in relation to the protection of personal data - JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber) of 8 December 2022, in case C? 460/20 TU RE v. ..., paragraph 72, which held that "... in the case in which the person who submitted a request for the deletion of links provides relevant and sufficient evidence, capable of supporting his application and of documenting the manifest inaccuracy of the information included in the classified content or, at least, a part of such information which is not of minor importance in relation to the totality of such content, the search engine operator is obliged to accept the request for de-linking. The same applies when the data subject submits a court decision issued against the publisher of the website, which is based on the finding that information included in the classified content and which is not of minor importance in relation to the totality of the said content, is, at least prima facie, inaccurate". Consequently, since in the present case, the request for deletion (removal of links), was linked to the issuance, in the context of an application for interim measures, of the interim order of 24.5.2012 of the President of the Service of the Athens Court of First Instance (by which the defendants were temporarily prohibited from any reference to the name and person of the applicant in connection with the words "traveli, transsexual and transvestite" ... until the hearing of the application and subject to its hearing at the appointed hearing, which, as recorded on the application as above application was duly served on the second appellant's business establishment in Greece on 29.5.2012, as stated in the contested decision) and, subsequently, with the issuance of the relevant decision on the above application no. ... of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Procedure for Interim Measures), by which it was accepted as well-founded in substance with regard to all the defendants (including the second appellant) and it was ordered, inter alia, the omission in the future of "any reference to the name and person of the applicant on the websites of the first and third defendants, as well as the omission of the fourth defendant to associate in the future, in the search field of its website, the applicant's name with the words "traveler, transsexual and transvestite" or other defamatory phrases or words" and this, too, was served on 15.11.2012 legally at the professional establishment in Greece of the second appellant - and regardless of the fact that, in addition, there had previously been relevant electronic correspondence between them, regarding the request to delete the aforementioned links, as detailed above in the contested decision, requests, interim order and decision which, according to the appellant's admissions, the second appellant ignored (while, according to the above, the first appellant was also found to be the controller) - furthermore, it was held that no (other) specific and specific request from the respondent was required, which would identify the links to be deleted by means of their electronic addresses (URL), with special filters, with the contested decision the provisions of substantive law invoked, as above, by the appellant were not violated of EU and domestic legislation, as well as Articles 8 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, and therefore this ground of appeal is unfounded and must be rejected (under Article 559, paragraph 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure), while the remaining objections of the appellants concern the assessment of the evidentiary material, which, however, is not subject to appellate review (Article 561, paragraph 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure). Finally, with the fourth ground of appeal, the appellants argue that, by partially accepting the contested decision's request for default interest on the amount of thirty thousand (€30,000) awarded by the appealed decision under No. ... of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (Regular Procedure), euros, from the day following the date of service of this judgment to each of the appellants and until full payment, which was proposed by its proposals before the Court of Appeal, as admissible and to award this, despite the law (522 and 535 III of the Code of Civil Procedure), fell under the defect of article 559, no. 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure and must, for this reason, be annulled. It follows from the provision of article 283 of the Code of Civil Procedure that it is permitted to bring an incidental action between the same parties in the same court at any stage of the trial, but also in the appeal for an incidental claim, while from the provision of paragraph 3 of article 525 of the same Code, it follows that it is permitted in the second-instance trial to submit with the proposals applications for incidental claims that arose after the hearing, during which the contested decision was issued. As Ancillary claim means the claim that constitutes a necessary follow-up to the claim, which was invoked in the claim, which constitutes a substantive legal condition for the genesis of the first claim. In this sense, ancillary is, among others, the claim for interest on the capital requested in the claim (AP Ol 10/2007 and a contrario AP 517/2023, AP 1572/2013) and which concerns, on the capital awarded, by the first-instance decision, a request for the award of interest only for the period after the issuance of the above decision (and not, of course, from the service of the claim, since such a request had not been submitted with its claim). In the present case, as accepted by the appealed decision, "....submitted, through the documents filed before this Court on 4.12.2019 proposals (in the form of an additional ground of appeal) request pursuant to the provision of article 525 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure for the award of default interest from the day following the hearing of the action dated 15.1.2013 with G.A.K. ... and A.K.D. ... on 22.9.2016, namely on 23.9.2016, until full payment of the total amount requested, otherwise on any amount that may be awarded by this Court, otherwise on the awarded amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000). ........ In the present case, although the additional ground of appeal, as discussed in the motions filed before this Court on 4.12.2019 by the appellant in the appeal under item I - the respondent in the appeal under item II, would, as such, be rejected as inadmissible, because according to the express provision of article 520 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure with regard to the regular procedure (but also according to the new provision of article 591 par. 1, sub-paragraph g' of the Code of Civil Procedure with regard to the special procedures), additional grounds of appeal are only filed with a separate pleading and not with the motions, in reality, through the above motions, an independent request for the award of a subsequent claim for default interest is admissibly introduced under the exceptional provision of article 525 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in accordance with the above, this request must be accepted as well-founded and in substance and interest on arrears on the amount of thirty thousand EUROS (€30,000) awarded by the appealed decision to the companies under item I - appellants under item II, jointly and severally liable, from the day following the service of this notice on each of the above companies (which constitutes a notice of payment within the meaning of the provision of article 340 of the Civil Code) and until full payment. Therefore, since in this case it is a secondary claim (interest) on the capital awarded by the first instance court, for the period after the service, to the appellants, of the ... decision of the Multi-Member Court of First Instance of Athens, the relevant request was admissibly submitted with the proposals of the respondent in the second instance trial and the above interest award was made and there was no violation of the provisions of articles 522 and 525 III of the Code of Civil Procedure (as to the admissibility or not of the submission of the above request and its non-rejection in the appealed decision) and, therefore, the second instance court did not commit the error under article 559, paragraph 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the relevant reason must be rejected as unfounded. Following these, for lack of any other reason, the appeal of 28-7-2021 must be rejected, the appellants, due to their defeat, be ordered to pay the legal costs of the respondent, who filed motions in accordance with her relevant legal request (articles 106, 176, 183, 191 par. 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure) and the deposit of the deposited fee into the public treasury (article 495 par. 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure), as specifically provided in the operative part. FOR THESE REASONS It rejects the appeal of 28.7.2021 against the decision no. ... of the Three-Member Court of Appeal of Athens. Orders the entry of the fee deposited by the appellants, for the exercise of the appeal, into the public treasury. Orders the appellants to pay the court costs of the respondent, which it sets at two thousand seven hundred (2,700) euros. JUDGED, decided in Athens, on 9 September 2024. PUBLISHED in a public session in its audience, in Athens, on 20 May 2025. THE PRESIDENT THE SECRETARY<< Back