But on Tuesday, as my colleague Adam Satariano reported from London, the European Court of Justice ruled that the right to be forgotten does not apply outside the European Union. The court also said the right to delete certain personal data must be balanced against the public’s right to know.

The ruling was a victory for Google and other search engines, Adam wrote. It means that the tech giant will not be required to take down links outside the European Union. It may also give Google and other companies more leeway to refuse certain deletion requests in the name of the public interest.

But defending the public’s right to know can also have intended consequences.

In a riveting article, Adam profiled a journalist in Italy, Alessandro Biancardi, who lost a legal battle to preserve an article about a pair of brawling brothers. The story covered the stabbing of one brother by another at a seaside restaurant.

The brother who was stabbed wanted the article about the incident deleted and sued the journalist, citing his right to be forgotten, Adam reported. The journalist, however, refused to take down the article.

The European court’s new ruling limiting the right to be forgotten may help local publications in the European Union defend and preserve such news coverage.

But for Mr. Biancardi, it is too late.

The journalist lost the lawsuit over the article about the brawling brothers. Faced with many other privacy and article-deletion demands, including 40 lawsuits, Mr. Biancardi shut down his news site last year.