Search giant
Google has been swamped by people making ‘Right to be Forgotten’ requests. Google, which has headquarters in Mountain View, California, United States, received around 350,000 requests targeting more than 1 million links to content made available through Google’s search results. To date, only 42% of these requests have been addressed, Google suggested.
The "Right to be Forgotten" was passed by the European Union Court of Justice in May last year when it was deemed a human right. The ruling applies to all search engines, not just Google, and allows individuals to remove links to content that might include information about themselves. It applies to content that is deemed 'inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant'. Google pages were links to information have been removed show “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe” at the foot of the page. The American version of Google is not impacted.
The European Union Court of Justice’s ruling also gave search engines the requirement to judge requests based on whether maintaining links was in the “public interest”. Google has deemed 600,000 links in that category and refused to remove them. The UK’s House of Lord's EU Committee suggested the ruling is “unworkable and wrong” adding “we do not believe that individuals should have a right to have links to accurate and lawfully available information about them removed, simply because they do not like what is said.”
What do you think about the right to be forgotten? Is it workable? Add your comments below.
