Google Receives 12,000 Requests To Be Forgotten From Europeans On Day One
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
For us to evaluate your request, you must:
(a) Provide the URL for each link appearing in a Google search for your name that you request to be removed. (The URL can be taken from your browser bar after clicking on the search result in question).
(b) Explain, if not clear, why the linked page is about you (or, if you are submitting this form on behalf of someone else, the person named above).
(c) Explain how this URL in search results is irrelevant, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate
If your request concerns more than one URL, please provide an explanation for each URL. *
The steps seem clear to me. I can't think of another way they could do this. They're asking for all the information needed to make an initial assesment. The onus is on the submitter to make the claim and provide the evidence.
I can imagine in most cases, Google will require follow-up documents or further evdence to prove that you are no longer associated with event X, Y or Z. All of this will make the process even lengthier.
What I'd like to know is if this ruling applies only to Google or to other search engines too? The action was bought againt Google, but the European Court of Justice uses the generic wording "operator of a search engine" in it's press relase about the ruling. Presumably this means any local or international search engine that operates with offices in that country must also provide a link removal assesment service. Does the search engine have to remove results from their entire index or just the results served to users of a particular country (where the claim was filed)? And are search engines under any obligation to publish the results of successful requests to remove links?
This ruling feels unworkable and throws up so many complications.
It doesn't cover non-local data. Thus, I can have results removed from google.co.uk but google can leave those results in for google.com
I am interested in how Google will handle cultural differences. The UK has a lot of publicity about politicians who have extra-marital affairs. France doesn't appear to care whether their politicians have affairs. So, is that information relevant or not?
They are only required to remove results that are 'irrelevant, outdated, or inappropriate' so unless you changed your name, it would be hard to justify removing all those links. Google has no incentive to make that possible either.
"People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word."
Orwell's 1984