SEOK v Hammy Media. The Amsterdam courts, using both Brussels Ia and the GDPR, to order the qualified removal of online porn.

A late post on the Amsterdam courts’ injunction, in interlocutory proceedings, ordering Hammy Media to remove secretly filmed amateur adult content. The judgment will be of interest to both privacy lawyers and jurisdictional aficionados.

The court is not too bothered with a neat and exhaustive analysis of the jurisdictional issue. This could have brought it to a discussion of CJEU e-Date, Bolagsupplysningen, etc,  removal orders as also applied in the context of the right to be forgotten, and of course the complex relationship between Brussels Ia and the GDPR when it comes to jurisdiction.

Instead, it identifies The Netherlands as a Member State with full jurisdiction as locus delicti commissi (ldc),  seemingly arguing [4.2] (it reasons are a bit muddled) that the use of a specific internet domain name to target Dutch customers, and the use of (whether not automatically translated) Dutch on that site, makes The Netherlands the (or perhaps: ‘a’?) ldc, which in one breath it mentions as meeting with the foreseeability requirement that is part of the general DNA of Brussels Ia. It supports its jurisdiction with a refernece to A79 GDPR’s ‘habitual residence’ of the data subject’s gateway as I discuss here.

Except for that material for which Hammy Media can show consent of all persons involved, the court then bans distribution of the material, worldwide as far as those resident in The Netherlands is concerned, and in The Nethelrands as far as the data subjects not resident in The Netherlands is concerned.

It does not specify why it introduces that distinction, although it is clearly linked to jurisdictional limitations it feels itself limited to.

Geert.

EU Private International Law, 3rd ed. 2021, 2.256.

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