Compliance Management, Privacy

‘Right to be forgotten’ extended to all Google domains in EU

To extend the “right to be forgotten” ruling, Google will start removing certain search results across all domains in the European Union.

According to the BBC, removed results will no longer appear on any version of Google when a European IP address is detected. Until now, search results removed under the ruling were only omitted from European versions of Google like google.co.uk.

In September 2015, the French data protection authority threatened Google with a fine if it did not remove the search results data from all worldwide sites, including non-European search sites like Google.com. The tech giant has now let up while fending off claims that it doesn't respect Europe's tough privacy rules.

Since the ruling came into force, Google has rejected about 60 percent of the over 386,000 “right to be forgotten” removal requests from users asking them to block links.

Google advised Europe's data protection regulators last month about the upcoming changes to its search results. Elsa Trochet-Macé, spokeswoman for the French privacy authority said, “We're now analysing the new changes.”

Renate Samson, chief executive of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch commented: “The move by Google to ensure 'right to be forgotten' across European versions of Google offers reassurance to the thousands of regular, ordinary citizens who have sought the right for inaccurate or out-of-date content about them to be blocked from Google's searches.”  

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