Google is defying a request from France’s data protection regulator to delist search results from users who invoke the “right to be forgotten” request.
Tech Times reports that while Google is respecting the request throughout Europe, the internet monolith is outright defying the order in France.
In May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) reached a landmark ruling, which instated a “right to be forgotten.” In other words, Europeans have the right to request Google to “delist” certain links from search engines when the search is related to that person’s name.
According to The Washington Post, Google said that is has accepted around 41 percent of “more than a quarter of a million removal requests.” The removals are limited to European Websites because, as Google points out, more than 95 percent of web searches made from Europe are done on local versions of the web browser.
France’s data regulator, CNIL, has formally requested Google to delist links from all European versions of Google Search, as well as globally. Meaning, if Google were to remove listings from Google.fr, then the listings would also have to removed from all versions of Google Search in every country of the world – even in the United States, reports The New York Times.
“When we’re talking about a broadly scoped right to be forgotten that’s about altering the historical record or making information that was lawfully public no longer accessible to people, I don’t see a way to square that with a fundamental right to access to information,” said Emma Llanso from the Center for Democracy and Technology, a tech-focused think tank funded in part by Google.
When we’re talking about a broadly scoped right to be forgotten that’s about altering the historical record or making information that was lawfully public no longer accessible to people, I don’t see a way to square that with a fundamental right to access to information.
Google pointed out that one country should not have the authority to control what users in another country have access to via internet searches.
Google has not only declined CNIL’s request, but has asked the regulator to withdraw its Formal Notice.
Last month, Consumer Watchdog submitted a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission stating that the “right to be forgotten” policy should be offered in the United States.
