Right To Be Forgotten Hits The NY Times

from the the-paper-of-record dept

Over the weekend, the NY Times revealed that it is the latest publication to receive notification from Google that some of its results will no longer show up for searches on certain people's names, under the whole "right to be forgotten" nuttiness going on in Europe these days. As people in our comments have pointed out in the past, it's important to note that the stories themselves aren't erased from Google's index entirely -- they just won't show up when someone searches on the particular name of the person who complained. Still, the whole effort is creating a bit of a Streisand Effect in calling new attention to the impacted articles.

In this case, the NY Times was notified of five articles that were caught up in the right to be forgotten process. Three of the five involved semi-personal stuff, so the Times decided not to reveal what those stories were (even as it gently mocks Europe for not believing in free speech):

Of the five articles that Google informed The Times about, three are intensely personal — two wedding announcements from years ago and a brief paid death notice from 2001. Presumably, the people involved had privacy reasons for asking for the material to be hidden.

I can understand the Times' decision not to reveal those articles, but it still does seem odd. You can understand why people might not want their wedding announcements findable, but they were accurate at the time, so it seems bizarre to have them no longer associated with your name.

The other two stories, however, again reveal the more questionable nature of this process:

One Times article that is being shielded from certain searches in Europe is a report from 2002 about a decision by a United States court to close three websites that the federal government accused of selling an estimated $1 million worth of unusable Web addresses. The complaint named three British companies, TLD Network, Quantum Management and TBS Industries, as well as two men who it said controlled the companies: Thomas Goolnik and Edward Harris Goolnik of London.

The case was later settled. Thomas Goolnik did not respond to messages left via social networking sites.

Now, if the request was sent in by one of the Goolnik's, it seems especially questionable. The fact that they were involved in a legal dispute is relevant factual information, even if it was eventually settled.

As for the other article...

In the last of The Times articles, a feature about a 1998 production of “Villa Villa” by the ensemble called De la Guarda, it was much harder to divine the objection. Not a review, the article explored how the antic, acrobatic show was managing “to get a generation raised on MTV interested in seeing live theater.”

It's unclear from that article what someone is upset about. There are a few people named (though many are Americans who aren't supposed to be filing for such requests). And, even with the quotes it's difficult to see how any of them could upset someone. The only thing that caught my eye is that the story quotes a "27-year-old art student" named Feliz Skamser. Skamser's quote is innocuous "It was like a dream, only more intense," but the very same sentence awkwardly inserts a quote from The Guardian (not from Skamser) calling the show "theater as good as sex." If people read the sentence quickly, perhaps some might think that Skamser said that latter quote -- and perhaps she was annoyed that people were associating her with a quote about sex? Or maybe she just doesn't want people to know she went to the theater? A search on her name will turn up that story on the American Google, but not the UK Google.

Once again, though, we're left wondering how this setup makes any sense at all. If the information was accurate at the time, then why should it be removed?

Filed Under: europe, right to be forgotten
Companies: google, ny times

Google Shuts Down Stewart Baker's Faux Attempt To Delist Techdirt's Posts About Him

from the a-stupid-law-begets-stupid-outcomes dept

If you'll recall, one of the NSA's (and TSA, DHS, etc.) foremost apologists, Stewart Baker, decided to highlight the ridiculousness of Europe's "right to be forgotten" ruling by sending in a few requests of his own. One of the links targeted by Baker's "for demonstration purposes only" requests was the tag "Stewart Baker" here at Techdirt.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=stewart+baker

Reason this link violates the right to be forgotten:

This link is inappropriate. It compiles stories making many distorted claims about my political views. Political views are a particularly sensitive form of personal data. The stories are written by men who disagree with me, and they are assembled for the purpose of making money for a website, a purpose that cannot outweigh my interest in controlling the presentation of sensitive data about myself.

While Baker probably wouldn't have been too terribly bothered if Google "forgot" Techdirt's posts, the real point of his academic exercise was to probe for responses from the search giant. Baker didn't do anything to game the system, clearly stated he was an American citizen and provided a copy of his ID as required.

The end result? Nothing that Baker challenged was removed, but the responses show that Google is at least following up on "right to be forgotten" requests from extra-jurisdictional requesters, rather than simply telling them the law doesn't apply to them.

Would Google honor a takedown request made by a person who wasn’t a UK or EU national? The answer appears to be yes. Google’s response does not mention my nationality as a reason for denying my requests. This is consistent with Europe’s preening view that its legal “mission civilisatrice” is to confer privacy rights on all mankind. And it may be the single most important point turned up by this first set of hacks, because it means that lawyers all around the world can start cranking out takedown requests for Belorussian and Saudi clients who don’t like the way they look on line.

That's not a promising development. Google may not be enforcing anything but the letter of the law, but the examination of requests coming from outside the ruling's jurisdiction means Google is also somewhat acquiescing to the spirit of the ruling. But when it came to delisting information, Google drew the line for reasons unrelated to requester origin.

In an effort to see whether Google would let me get away with blatant censorship of my critics, I asked for deletion of a page from Techdirt that seems to be devoted to trashing me and my views…

To American ears, such a claim is preposterous, but under European law, it’s not. Google, thank goodness, still has an American perspective: “Our conclusion is that the inclusion of the news article(s) in Google’s search results is/are – with regard to all the circumstances of the case we are aware of – still relevant and in the public interest.” If I had to bet, I’d say that this rather vague statement is the one Google uses when other, more pointed reasons to deny relief don’t work. But the reference to this page as a “news article” suggests that Google may be using a tougher standard in evaluating takedown requests for news media, a term that applies, at least loosely, to Techdirt.

It appears that Google is still very hesitant to remove anything even "loosely" related to news media (a backhanded compliment from Baker!), which is good news. Not that Baker's quick "hack" approaches anything near empirical research, but at least in terms of boilerplate responses, Google seems to defer to the public interest.

There's no way to tell if that balance would shift more if the requester was actually European, and it would seem from early reports that newsworthy "right to be forgotten requests" are an exercise in futility even when they do result in delisting orders. Hitting news media with requests has only resulted in new news about requester's actions/words he or she wants buried and, possibly more importantly, new articles, seeing as Google appears to be more protective of recent news.

I’m having trouble finding stuff in my search history that is sufficiently inaccurate or outdated, especially now that we know Google is treating professional activities and news as per se relevant (at least if it’s “recent,” whatever that means).

The RTBF is still a horrible idea that can only be implemented badly, and it will either get worse as more people find ways to game the system, or simply fall into disrepair as more people (especially anyone considered by Google to be a "public figure") find it nearly impossible to bury past behavior. Like many other internet-targeted rulings, the idea behind it is (somewhat) noble, but the premise is utterly flawed and the actual deployment a complete farce. Google (and other search engines) are in an unenviable situation for the forseeable future, forced to comply with a law that simply can't be complied with.

Filed Under: censorship, europe, right to be forgotten, stewar baker
Companies: google

UK Gov't Agency Says It Can't Talk About Its Employees' Use Of 'Right To Be Forgotten' Requests

from the law-itself-prevents-any-discussion dept

One of the biggest problems (hard to pick just one...) with Europe's "right to be forgotten" is that it completely fails to consider the fact that those being asked to forget won't take this sort of government intrusion kindly, especially when requests are more related to burying embarrassments than restoring privacy.

It's been one backfire after another since the debacle began. Every notable request seems to be accompanied by a story about the removal, resulting in the generation of even more web content to be targeted for selective amnesia.

Everyone wants to know who's asking to be forgotten and why. A FOI requester in the UK has asked the Dept. of Energy and Climate Change to provide this information on its own employees.

Thank you for your email of 15 August 2014 where you requested the following information:

- “How many times have Ministers in your department, or staff from your department on those Ministers’ behalf, applied to Google or other search engines to have links removed from searches under the ‘right to be forgotten’ following the EU ruling earlier this year?
- Please break this figure down by minister.
- Please detail the web pages run by your department which have been served a notice by Google that they will not be appearing in certain search results as a result of the right to be forgotten.
- How many person-hours have been spent by your staff dealing with the ‘right to be forgotten’ (e.g. writing to or liaising with Google about removal requests)“.

The request pits government transparency against government opacity -- although the latter has been generously extended to European citizens with the "right to be forgotten" law. Unsurprisingly, transparency loses, but only inasmuch as the new law ensures transparency will lose.

To the extent that the “Right to be Forgotten” ruling provides that Individuals (in any capacity “official” or otherwise) have the right - under certain conditions - to ask search engines to remove links with personal information about them where the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive for the purposes of the data processing, the department holds no “official” information pursuant to your request.

Certainly not the desired response, but the desired response would undermine the law, which the UK government really can't do. If UK citizens can ask privately to be forgotten, so can public officials. The wording in the response spins the law positively, which is also expected. The only thing the government could have responded to without undermining the law it has to enforce is total up the hours spent dealing with the paperwork.

Presumably, similar requests have been made to other UK government agencies and presumably they will be greeted with similar responses. While this doesn't shed much light on how many government officials and employees are seeking to cleanse the net of information, we can be assured that any notable request will be duly noted by the entities being asked to forget. The UK government can't answer these questions without negating this (very questionable) right, but the private sector can still let the world know who wants what gone. One of the best checks against government power is the public itself -- even when it's citizens themselves who are using a bad law to request dubious removals.

Filed Under: right to be forgotten, secrecy, uk, uk government

BBC Has 12 More Articles Shoved Down The Google Memory Hole Thanks To 'Right To Be Forgotten'

from the gone-but-not-forgotten dept

The European Court of Justice's awful "right to be forgotten" ruling is continuing to memory hole perfectly factual stories -- but publications like the BBC are bringing them back to light. Google has informed the BBC of 12 more stories that it is removing from its index thanks to requests from individuals who'd prefer that their history no longer be accessible to the public. While Google does not reveal who is making the request, it's often not too difficult to figure it out -- even though Google is now warning the BBC that sometimes the requester's name may only be in the comments.

Two stories relate to the high-profile case of a British woman found guilty of running "one of Europe's biggest prostitution rings" in 2003.

Other stories taken down covered a wide range of incidents. Google removed a 2002 story concerning a dispute between two Somerset families over the ownership of a wire-haired terrier called Wellie.

Another removed story concerns a car thief branded an "idiot" by his own barrister, while yet another features an 18-year-old Bristol student convicted of drink-driving after crashing his Mini into the steps of his university campus.

Some of the other listed, but memory-holed articles:

A man cleared of a stabbing in London in 2010

The jailing of a former Daily Mail employee who threatened to hack the newspaper in 2000

A 2009 diary entry from the BBC's then-Jerusalem correspondent Tim Franks on the merits of hummus

A 2005 page of appeals from those looking for family members missing after the Asia tsunami

A selection of readers' comments on the terror threat posed by al-Qaeda in 2005

I'm still trying to figure out what good this effort accomplishes. Deleting factual things makes no sense. Allowing people to go back and erase perhaps embarrassing things from their past may have a visceral appeal, but it's just silly. People do embarrassing things that they later regret. It's a part of life. Part of maturing is being able to admit that you did silly things in the past and that you learned from them. Trying to disappear them down the memory hole seems to highlight how an immature person remained immature.

Filed Under: europe, right to be forgotten
Companies: bbc, google

Google Struggling To Deal With Right To Be Forgotten Requests -- Will Now Delete Wikipedia Page From Search Results

from the but,-uh,-it's-editable dept

Late last week, Google responded to the concerns raised by some EU regulators regarding how it is implementing the new "right to be forgotten" rules. Google's full response is well worth reading going into a fair bit of detail, highlighting how there are a lot of non-trivial decisions to be made in this process -- brought on by a ridiculous European Court of Justice ruling. As part of it, Google notes that the process is entirely one-sided and they only get information from the person wishing to delete information from search engines:

We generally have to rely on the requester for information, without assurance beyond the requester’s own assertions as to its accuracy. Some requests turn out to have been made with false and inaccurate information. Even if requesters provide us with accurate information, they understandably may avoid presenting facts that are not in their favour. As such, we may not become aware of relevant context that would speak in favour of preserving the accessibility of a search result. An example would be a request to remove an old article about a person being convicted of a number of crimes in their teenage years, which omits that the old article has its relevance renewed due to a recent article about that person being convicted for similar crimes as an adult. Or a requester may not disclose a role they play in public life, for which their previous reported activities or political positions are highly relevant. We have also seen examples of data subjects who indiscriminately submit many URLs that are displayed as search results for their name, even though some URLs are actually about another person with the same name.

As if to highlight the difficulty, Google is apparently now set to disappear a Wikipedia page from its index due to a right to be forgotten request. But, of course, Wikipedia pages are open and constantly editable, so it seems weird to order that the page be removed entirely from the search engine when someone could just edit it instead. And, if the edit gets reverted, well, perhaps it's because it's factual information that is perfectly fine to include in Wikipedia and in Google.

The article does not reveal the particular Wikipedia page or any further information, but highlights just what a ridiculous ruling the original ECJ ruling was. Google is a search engine. Its entire purpose is to help people find what they're looking for -- not to judge whether or not it's appropriate for someone to be seeking that information in the first place. And then, once you include the editable nature of Wikipedia to the mix, you're creating a situation that is doubly ridiculous, since there are so many other options for how to deal with the issue.

Filed Under: europe, right to be forgotten, wikipedia
Companies: google

EU Regulators Want Google To Expand Right To Be Forgotten Worldwide And To Stop Telling What Links Have Been Forgotten

from the worldwide-censorship dept

We've been covering the ridiculous ruling in the EU on the "right to be forgotten," which was interpreted to mean that search engines could be forced to delete links to perfectly truthful stories (and even if those stories are allowed to be kept online). Google has been trying to comply with the over 90,000 requests it has received -- nearly half of which it has approved -- and removed from its European searches. The company has been struggling to figure out how to comply with the ruling, and those struggles continue. Originally, it was going to place a notice on search results pages where links had been removed (like it does with copyright takedowns) alerting people that stories were missing. However, regulators told Google that would defeat the purpose. So now, Google's European search results show a message on nearly every search on a "name" that results might have been removed.

Either way, once Google started removing the requested stories, it did the right thing, alerting the websites that links were being removed. Of course, that just resulted in many of those publications writing about it, and bringing the original news back into the public eye.

In response to all of this, European regulators are apparently quite angry again, summoning representatives from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (but mainly Google) to argue that the removals should be global, not just for Europe and that the companies should stop informing websites if their stories were removed. One hopes that these three companies would fight strongly against either such proposal. The idea that Europe can dictate how search engines in other parts of the world work is dangerous. We've already noted that a Canadian court seems to think it has similar powers, and that's going to create a huge mess. Any time courts and regulators in one country think they can dictate how websites work in other countries, that is creating a massive jurisdictional mess (where contradictory rulings may run into each other), as well as allowing oppressive states to claim they, too, have the right to dictate how the web works in more open countries.

As for blocking sites from being informed, that would clearly go against basic transparency principles, and lead to yet another huge mess for websites which will (quite reasonably) wonder why their stories have gone totally missing from Google searches (especially if forced to extend it around the globe).

Of course, the real problem here is with the original ruling. The idea that public information that is widely disseminated already can magically be made private because someone thinks it's embarrassing and that it's no longer important is simply a ridiculous assertion in the first place. All of the problems that have come in implementing this are because the initial premise -- trying to disappear public information -- is so messed up.

Filed Under: eu, jurisdiction, regulators, right to be forgotten, transparency
Companies: google, microsoft, yahoo

Another Right To Be Forgotten Request Backfires Completely

from the the-only-way-it-was-ever-going-to-play-out dept

When the EU Court of Justice issued its "right to be forgotten" ruling, it seemed to forget that there are many more parties involved than simply the aggrieved person standing in front of them. There are those whose articles are being delisted, many of which are journalistic institutions that aren't going to simply lay there and allow some third party to selectively edit their publications.

The Bolton News (UK) just received notification from Google that one of its stories was due to be vanished from Google's search engine. Needless to say, this request has produced another story highlighting the original story the filer(s) wanted delisted.

A STORY in The Bolton News has come under the spotlight of the controversial new "right to be forgotten" ruling…

The 2010 story details a court case in which Ben Barlow, Christopher Mahoney and Christopher Brennan were jailed after they pleaded guilty to violent disorder. They had attacked a group of soldiers who had all served in Afghanistan. The victims told the court they were more frightened in the pub than they had been on the front line.

[...]

In the attack, the thugs glassed paratrooper Adam Evans in the neck and stabbed him in the leg. Another of the soldiers, Jamie Morton, who was kicked and punched on the ground, said he feared he was going to die.

At the trial of the three men, Judge William Morris said: “These victims were all injured. Mr Evans was very gravely injured indeed.”

Someone thought this story should just go away. The Bolton News thought otherwise. Now, whoever wanted the original story delisted has another article to add to a future request. But judging from editor-in-chief's comments, adding Bolton News links to a right to be forgotten request is going to be a waste of time.

“As the editor of a newspaper, I believe passionately in the freedom of the press and I will fight any attempts to remove legitimate content…

“Clearly, people who aren’t happy that stories which we have legitimately published should not have the right to have them removed from a Google search, in my view."

It sounds like the Bolton News will simply highlight each request as it comes in, defeating the requester's attempt to bury bad news. Many other journalism outlets have taken the same stance in the last several days, turning the EU court's ruling into one of the most self-defeating decisions ever rendered.

The only way to prevent this is for the EU court to start taking action against journalistic entities who subvert the spirit of the ruling or ordering Google to stop notifying those affected, neither of which should even be considered by the legal body. The original ruling was terrible enough, especially in its blissful ignorance of how this "right to be forgotten" would work in practice.

Things can be forgotten, even on the internet. But it's organic. Whatever the steady flow of content doesn't push aside will likely succumb to link rot at some point. Newspaper websites (a favorite target of right to be forgotten requests) experiment with paywalled archives or otherwise make their older articles unavailable (often just sloppy maintenance or coding), solving many of these complainants' problems for them. Issuing a request is pretty much guaranteed to bring it all right back to the surface. Forcing this organic process will almost always backfire, something requesters should keep in mind before filling out Google's webform.

Filed Under: ben barlow, christopher brennan, christopher mahoney, europe, journalism, right to be forgotten, search engines
Companies: bolton news

Google Restores Some Links To Articles Removed In 'Right To Be Forgotten' Mess

from the so-how's-this-work-now? dept

Last week, of course, there was a lot of attention around Google alerting publications that some of their stories had been removed from its index over "right to be forgotten" requests, following a dangerous European Court of Justice ruling. Various publications in the UK complained about some of the removals, and requested if there was any sort of appeals process. The BBC was initially told that there was no such process, though the Guardian claimed it was looking for ways to appeal.

It appears that the current "appeals" process is based on how much attention and ridiculousness happen in response to the revelations. Because late last week, Google restored some of the links for the Guardian (mainly the ones where the removals made no sense at all).

Either way, this has now created quite a mess, which was easily predictable as soon as the court's ruling came down. How anyone can think a somewhat arbitrary censorship mechanism would function smoothly is beyond me.

Filed Under: appeals, bbc, europe, free speech, guardian, links, right to be forgotten
Companies: google

Google Alerts Press About Right To Be Forgotten Removals, Putting Those Stories Back In The News

from the institutionalized-streisanding dept

It's 2014 and do we really need to be reminded that, when you seek to censor something by demanding that it be removed from view, it's really only going to generate that much more attention to the original? I believe there's even a term for that sort of thing. As you may have heard, thanks to a ridiculous ruling in the EU Court of Justice, Google is being forced to start removing links to content, based on submissions by people who wish their past embarrassments would just disappear down the memory hole. The company received tens of thousands of requests for removals based on the new ruling, and last week began removing such links from its index, following a review by the new team the company had to put together to review these requests.

It appears that, as part of its transparency efforts, Google is also telling the websites who are being delinked that they are being delinked over this, because both the BBC and the Guardian have stories up today about how they've had stories removed from Google thanks to the "right to be forgotten" efforts. And, guess what? Both articles dig into what original articles have been removed, making it fairly easy to determine just who was so embarrassed and is now seeking to have that embarrassing past deleted. And, of course, by asking for the content to be removed, these brilliant individuals with embarrassing histories have made both the removal attempt and the original story newsworthy all over again.

First up, is the BBC, which received a notice about one of its articles being removed from search. That article is all about Merrill Lynch chairman Stan O'Neal losing his job. In fact, the only person named in the article is... Stan O'Neal. Take a wild guess what thin-skinned former top executive to a major US financial firm must have issued a "please forget me" request to Google? The BBC's Robert Preston -- author of both articles -- questions why this should be forgotten:

My column describes how O'Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

Is the data in it "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant"?

Hmmm.

Most people would argue that it is highly relevant for the track record, good or bad, of a business leader to remain on the public record - especially someone widely seen as having played an important role in the worst financial crisis in living memory (Merrill went to the brink of collapse the following year, and was rescued by Bank of America).

In other words, welcome to the new world in Europe, where all sorts of important, truthful and relevant information gets deleted.

Over at the Guardian, they've found out that six articles from their website have been memory-holed by Google. And again, it quickly becomes clear who's involved:

Three of the articles, dating from 2010, relate to a now-retired Scottish Premier League referee, Dougie McDonald, who was found to have lied about his reasons for granting a penalty in a Celtic v Dundee United match, the backlash to which prompted his resignation.

The Guardian does searches for McDonald on both the US and UK versions of Google and finds that McDonald's lie is wiped from history over in the UK, while we Americans can still find it, no problem.

The other disappeared articles – the Guardian isn't given any reason for the deletions – are a 2011 piece on French office workers making post-it art, a 2002 piece about a solicitor facing a fraud trial standing for a seat on the Law Society's ruling body and an index of an entire week of pieces by Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade.

It's pretty likely that Paul Baxendale-Walker is the person complaining about that second article, since he's the main subject of that article. The other two... are not clear at all. The Post-It wars story names three individuals: Julien Berissi, Stephane Heude and Emilie Cozette. But none of them are portrayed in any way that would seem negative. It just shows them having some fun by making giant post-it artwork. And the other one is just weird because it's not an actual story, but an index page showing a week of story headlines and opening blurbs -- but apparently whichever article in the list caused the request wasn't directly included itself -- suggesting whoever sent in the request did a pretty bad job of figuring out what to censor.

Either way, both the Guardian and the BBC point out how ridiculous this is. Preston, at the BBC, says this is "confirming the fears of many in the industry" that this will be used "to curb freedom of expression and to suppress legitimate journalism that is in the public interest." Meanwhile, James Ball at the Guardian, notes how troubling this is, and starts to think of ways to deal with it, including highlighting every "deleted" article:

But this isn't enough. The Guardian, like the rest of the media, regularly writes about things people have done which might not be illegal but raise serious political, moral or ethical questions – tax avoidance, for example. These should not be allowed to disappear: to do so is a huge, if indirect, challenge to press freedom. The ruling has created a stopwatch on free expression – our journalism can be found only until someone asks for it to be hidden.

Publishers can and should do more to fight back. One route may be legal action. Others may be looking for search tools and engines outside the EU. Quicker than that is a direct innovation: how about any time a news outlet gets a notification, it tweets a link to the article that's just been disappeared. Would you follow @GdnVanished?

Preston has asked Google how the BBC can appeal, while Ball says the Guardian doesn't believe there's any official appeals process. Either way, it's safe to say that (1) this process is a mess and leading to the censorship of legitimate content and (2) people like Stan O'Neal and Dougie McDonald who thought that they could hide their embarrassing pasts under this ruling may not end up being very happy in the long term.

Filed Under: censorship, dougie mcdonald, eu, free press, free speech, news, paul baxendale-walker, press, right to be forgotten, stan o'neal, stories, uk
Companies: bbc, google, guardian, merrill lynch

Google Starts Disappearing Part Of The Internet In Europe

from the censorship-in-action dept

And so it begins. Following last month's dangerous "right to be forgotten" censorship ruling by the EU Court of Justice, Google has now started censoring truthful search results in Europe . According to the Wall Street Journal:

Google engineers overnight updated the company's technical infrastructure to begin implementing the removals, and Thursday began sending the first emails to individuals informing them that links they had requested were being taken down. The company has hired a dedicated "removals team" to evaluate each request, though only a small number of the initial wave of takedown requests has so far been processed.

"This week, we're starting to take action on the removals requests that we've received," a Google spokesman said. "This is a new process for us. Each request has to be assessed individually, and we're working as quickly as possible to get through the queue."

Perhaps even more troubling, is that after EU regulators got worked up about Google's plan to at least indicate that certain search results had been removed (as it does with DMCA copyright takedowns), Google has backed down on that plan:

Google, for its part, has appeared to bend to regulators' desire that the company refrain from indicating in search results when something had been removed. Google had earlier indicated it might highlight the removals, something it does when it removes links to pirated content. But EU regulators told Google in recent weeks that such a move would undermine the spirit of the decision by making it clear some individuals had wanted information about them suppressed, one regulator said.

Instead, Google on Thursday added a blanket notification that appears at the bottom of most results for individual name searches conducted on Google's European search websites, according to an explanation the company posted to its website. The notification—"Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe"—is added algorithmically to searches that appear to be for a name, a person familiar with the matter said.

Still, it seems highly likely that Google is going to face more litigation over this, since some are grumbling that Google is only removing those results on its EU pages, and that if someone sneaks over to one of Google's non-EU search engines, it can still find the (again, truthful) information.

This whole thing is a huge mess based on people totally misunderstanding the nature of public information. And, because of that, there are going to be a series of fights over just how far Google has to go in censoring such information.

Filed Under: eu, right to be forgotten, search engines, search results
Companies: google