Google has complied with a European Union (EU) court ruling indicating individuals have the “right to be forgotten”.
The company has launched a service allowing European residents to request the removal of links that are “irrelevant” and “outdated” and such data should be erased on request, it said.
Google said it would assess each request and balance “privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information”.
Individuals would be allowed to specify which links they want removed from Google search results and requires a user to submit a copy of their EU identification.
The company said it would balance an individual’s right to privacy with the public’s right to know when considering requests filled out on their forms.
“When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information—for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials,” the company said.
It said it would be working with a panel of data protection authorities over the next few months to refine its approach.
“We’re a big company and we can respond to these kinds of concerns and spend money on them and deal with them, it’s not a problem for us. But as a whole, as we regulate the internet, I think we’re not going to see the kind of innovation we’ve seen,” Google CEO Larry page is said.
He said the system could be used for nefarious purposes. “It will be used by other governments that aren’t as forward and progressive as Europe to do bad things.
