European right to be forgotten forces Google to remove over a million links

Logo of Google outside their headquarters building in Mountainview, California.

Since the passage of the controversial European “right to be forgotten” law, Google has received a whopping 281,000 requests to stop 1.1 million web links from appearing in its search records. And the search engine giant has already granted 602,000 of the deletion request.

What makes it alarming that some of these requests come from killers, rapists, terrorists and former outlaws. However, most requests come from people who want to hide personal embarrassing records such as goofy social networking site details and dating site profiles.

If we look at the deletion records granted by Google, most people wanted to remove links redirecting to their Facebook profiles. Another networking website, Profile Engine, came a close second from which people wanted to hide themselves, and then comes Google’s own, YouTube.

If we look at the statistics nationwide, Google received requests to remove over 197,000 links, while the Britons requested around 138,576 links to be taken down. Google agreed to remove 63 percent links requested by the UK citizen in comparison to 52 percent of those requested by the French.



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When Google removes a link, the content doesn’t get removed from the internet, but it becomes extremely difficult for users in Europe to find that article.

Last month, a French privacy watchdog, the CNIL, had given an ultimatum to Google to extend the right to be forgotten regulations worldwide or be ready to face sanctions.

If Google complies to that, it will be almost impossible to find articles or content related to those search results.

Source: Mail Online

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