Google Ordered to Forget ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Stories

The Right to Be Forgotten has proved somewhat controversial.

The Cheshire-based Information Commissioner’s Office has issued an order to Google to remove several news links covering Europe’s “right to be forgotten” which Google refused. The removal of those links then itself became a news story. While the removal of the initial link has been welcomed by affected parties, news sites – and Google – have since reported about the removals and these report have featured in search results giving full details of the original articles, or linking to them. It has only been two days since Google’s UK office got the order, so we’ll have to wait and see if the company removes the links or pushes the ICO’s hand.

Thursday’s order, while it applies only in the United Kingdom, could provide an example for other countries, potentially provoking a new wave of takedown requests of stories about takedown requests, and a subsequent wave of stories about those new requests. The IOC gave Google a 35-day deadline.

The order, in other words, does not want all the new links removed; only the links that appear after searches for the person’s name.

“The commission does not dispute that journalistic content relating to decisions to delist search results may be newsworthy and in the public interest”, Deputy Information Commissioner David Smith wrote in a statement, acknowledging that the IC was asking that Google block access to legitimate journalism.

“However, that interest can be adequately and properly met without a search made on the basis of the complainant’s name providing links to articles which reveal information about the complainant’s spent conviction”, he wrote.

Right to be forgotten requests allow EU residents to have Google remove unflattering search results about them – such as a news story about a minor crime – so long as the results are no longer in the public interest.

Google declined to comment.

“Convicted criminals [are] attempting to erase all trace of their deeds from the public eye and the European Court and ICO are actively aiding and abetting them”, said Simon O’Neill, group editor of the Oxford Mail and the Oxford Times.

The Oxford Mail, for its part, did not know if its story was the one referenced in the case, but argued that it will resist removals even of stories about petty crimes. “But there are also serious offenders using this as a smokescreen for their disgusting deeds”.