EU “right to be forgotten” results may be flagged on Google search page

[Jeff Causey]

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Since a European Union court ruled last month that people in their jurisdiction have a “right to be forgotten” everyone has been watching how Google will respond to the court’s requirement that history be censored. Other search engines are impacted by the same ruling, but thus far Google is the only one that has made any move publicly with regard to the ruling. At the end of May Google launched a new online form for people to submit their requests to have results suppressed. Now it appears Google is considering adding language to their search results page to alert users to the fact that the results have been censored in accordance with the European Court’s ruling. The language is expected to be similar to what Google does now when material has been taken down in response to a complaint about copyright infringement.

In addition to the new language Google is expected to add to their search pages, the company has also setup an advisory committee to explore the issue of what constitutes the public interest and how that weighs against the EU’s “right to be forgotten.” Unfortunately, the EU court did not provide helpful guidance on how search companies should assess the “right to be forgotten” which leaves the issue with a “complete absence of legal oversight in the process” according to Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive for Index on Censorship. Google’s committee of seven includes Eric Schmidt and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Although neither Google nor Schmidt have commented on the issue, Wales thinks the EU decision is bad on many levels including the censorship it represents, the lack of impact on privacy it will have, and the difficulty it will create for those trying to address real privacy issues.

According to Google, they have already received at least 41,000 requests to take down information. Larry Page, Google’s chief executive, indicates about a third of the requests are related to a fraud or scam, a fifth involve serious crime issues, and an eighth concern child pornography arrests. Due to the nature of the ruling, for now Google has to consider each request on a case by case basis as to whether the search results need to be scrubbed.

source: The Guardian


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