Google still Battling Over Right to be Forgotten

One of the first thing you are taught about the internet these days is that once something goes up, you will never truly be able to take it down. For those things which shouldn’t be posted online, you can use the “right to be forgotten”. Designed to help people who have things posted online illegally, the right to be forgotten is designed to help people and is often targeted towards search engines like Google. Now it would seem that Google is having to battle over a single countries ruling that could have implications world wide.

Last year the Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) in France ruled that Google should not only respect the “right to be forgotten” rulings made within the country, but should also apply these rulings across all of their search engines across the world. After Google refused, they were hit with a 100,000 euro fine, something they are battling even now.

Google is less than happy to apply the ruling of a single country around the world as it could be abused by “less open and democratic” countries. Google is worried that if they were to allow global “right to be forgotten” requests, it would result in the removal of links that even point to “truthful and lawfully published information like newspaper articles or official government websites”. Of the 1.5 million requests they’ve received, Google has only removed about 40% the search results requested.

If they accept and agree to the french law, could another country request that all accounts relating to a corruption scandal be removed because a Judge has ordered it within the country?