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‘Right to be forgotten’ mess gets messier as European regulators complain about Google’s approach

The mess and uncertainty created by an European court ruling that individuals have a ‘right to be forgotten‘ by search-engines when sensitive information is deemed to be “outdated or irrelevant” just got worse. Regulators are meeting with Google today to express concerns about the way in which Google has chosen to implement the ruling, reports Business Insider.

Under particular scrutiny is Google’s decision to only remove results from its European search engines, such as google.co.uk, meaning anyone can easily access the hidden information by switching to the widely used google.com […]

Another issue likely to be raised by the EU watchdogs is Google’s decision to notify the owners of the websites that have been removed from search results …

Google created a webpage to allow users to request link removal before complying with a number of these requests. The process backfired on some of those requesting removal, however, when Google advised the media which links had been removed and several journalists chose to report this, bringing the material back into the limelight.

Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond criticized the court ruling, saying that the company was being asked to make “difficult and debatable judgements” based on “very vague and subjective tests.” He said that the company had set up an independent advisory panel of experts to help it make the decision.

The EU’s 28 data protection regulators are, in turn, creating their own group to develop guidelines to help them respond to complaints from those who have had their link removal requests refused.

This one will run and run.

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