In those circumstances, it decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) Can an activity in which data relating to the earned and unearned income and assets of natural persons are: (a) collected from documents in the public domain held by the tax authorities and processed for publication, (b) published alphabetically in printed form by income bracket and municipality in the form of comprehensive lists, (c) transferred onward on CD-ROM to be used for commercial purposes, and (d) processed for the purposes of a text-messaging service whereby mobile telephone users can, by sending a text message containing details of an individual’s name and municipality of residence to a given number, receive in reply information concerning the earned and unearned income and assets of that person, be regarded as the processing of personal data within the meaning of Article 3(1) of [the directive]? (2) Is [the directive] to be interpreted as meaning that the various activities listed in Question 1(a) to (d) can be regarded as the processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic purposes within the meaning of Article 9 of the directive, having regard to the fact that data on over one million taxpayers have been collected from information which is in the public domain under national legislation on the right of public access to information? Does the fact that publication of those data is the principal aim of the operation have any bearing on the assessment in this case? (3) Is Article 17 of [the directive] to be interpreted in conjunction with the principles and purpose of the directive as precluding the publication of data collected for journalistic purposes and its onward transfer for commercial purposes? (4) Is [the directive] to be interpreted as meaning that personal data files containing, solely and in unaltered form, material that has already been published in the media fall altogether outside its scope?’ The questions referred The first question