Europe’s highest court stunned the U.S. tech industry Tuesday by recognizing an expansive right to privacy that allows citizens to demand that Google delete links to embarrassing personal information – even if it’s true.

“It’s a very important decision. It is far-reaching, and it will have a big impact on the Internet industry,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “The European Court of Justice is making it extremely clear that privacy is a fundamental right.”

The case, which grew from the frustrations of a Spanish man unhappy that searches of his name featured links to a tax problem from 1998, hinged on whether the public’s right to know outweighed a private citizen’s desire to leave behind unpleasant personal history, an idea crystallized by the increasingly popular European phrase “the right to be forgotten.”

The EU’s Court of Justice, based in Luxembourg and roughly equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court, embraced the concept in part; it ruled that even though a Spanish newspaper had the right to publish information online about the man’s tax problems, Google had no right to provide links to it if the man objected.

Last year’s revelations about widespread monitoring of electronic communications by the U.S. National Security Agency sparked a furious response in Brussels, where E.U. lawmakers made regulating data a major focus of their legislative agenda.

European leaders vowed to take steps to protect their citizens’ online privacy. In Germany, some officials even suggested constructing a German-only network where users could be assured that German laws on privacy and data protection would be obeyed.

“Today’s Court Judgement is a clear victory for the protection of personal data of Europeans!” wrote Viviane Reding, the European Commission member who spearheaded the drive for a data policy overhaul, on her Facebook page Tuesday. “Companies can no longer hide behind their servers being based in California or anywhere else in the world.”