On Tuesday, in a formal opinion to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen said that Internet search giant Google cannot be forced to pull down "damaging" content - which was legally posted elsewhere - from its search engine.

Noting that Google could not be held responsible for third party information in its search results, Jääskinen - the senior adviser to Europe's top court - said that the existing European Union (EU) data and privacy laws do not have any general "right to be forgotten."

Jääskinen's opinion comes in connection with a Spanish case which was referred to the ECJ. The case involves a Spanish man whose social security debts had led to the auctioning off of his property in 1998. However, the man found the information online when he searched for his own name ten years after the proceedings had been concluded and resolved.

A complaint was then filed by the man with Spain's data protection authority - Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos (AEPD) - which sided with him in its ruling, However, Google appealed the AEPD verdict in one of Spain's highest courts; before the case was finally referred to the ECJ.

According to Jääskinen's opinion to the ECJ, Google cannot be deemed the "controller" of personal information from other websites. Confirming that a "right to be forgotten" does not exist in current legislation, Jääskinen drew attention to the existing 1995 EU Data Protection Directive and said: "The Directive does not establish a general 'right to be forgotten'."