Google Begins deleting search results in Europe...
Jun 26, 7:18 AM EDT
GOOGLE BEGINS EDITING EUROPEAN SEARCH RESULTS
BY TOBY STERLING ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Google has begun deleting some search
results at the request of its users, following a court ruling that European
Union citizens have a right to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal
information that pops up on a search of their names.
Several weeks after the May ruling by the European Court
of Justice on the so-called "right to be forgotten," the company set
up an online interface for users to register their complaints.
The company said Thursday it has begun taking down
results this week. But Google's European spokesman Al Verney said there is a
significant backlog to work through. At last report, more than 50,000 people
from multiple nationalities had filed requests to have information removed.
"Each request has to be assessed individually,"
Verney said.
The company is not releasing information on what
percentage of complaints appear to fall into areas the court specified as
potentially objectionable: results that are "inadequate, irrelevant or no
longer relevant."
Europe's national data protection agencies have said they
expect a mixed bag of `legitimate' complaints, as well as some that are clearly
not and some borderline cases.
Critics of the ruling say removing result links is
censorship, and will lead to politicians and criminals requesting elimination
of information. But supporters note the court specified Google should not
remove links to information when the public's right to know about it outweighs
an individual's right to privacy.
Under the system Google has set up, any search on a
user's name from within the European Union is supposed to show a warning that
information may have been removed due to privacy considerations, though the
system is not yet fully operational.
In cases where the company decides to reject a response
to scrub results, it informs the person that complained of its decision. Then
it tells them how to contact their national data protection agency if they
disagree with the decision and want to pursue the matter further.
Google is only deleting information that appears on its
own results pages. It has no control over information on external websites,
which did not fall under the court's ruling.
© 2014 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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