Google just can’t catch a break in Europe. The search engine giant has been fighting a long war with the European authorities over the removal of website links to stories that contain irrelevant or outdated information about certain persons under the “right to be forgotten” rule.
Now the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has explicitly ordered Google to remove links to nine news stories with “older reports.” According to the ICO, when searching for an individual’s name, previously removed results should be completely erased from the Internet’s history, which makes these news stories subject to removal as well. Google has been given a 35-day deadline to comply with the ruling, but it still has the right to appeal the order.
Google initially refused to comply with the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” law, explaining that the censorship of this content is “a matter of significant public importance.” Ironically, the IOC actually agrees with it, but goes on to extend the caveat that the specific case in question is hanging a non-public figure’s laundry out to dry for no good reason. “Content relating to the decisions to delist search results may be newsworthy and in the public interest,” the Commissioner’s Office writes. “However, that interest can be adequately and properly met without a search made on the basis of the complainant’s name.”
In its original guise, the “right-to-be-forgotten” law only applied to old information. With its new ruling, the ICO has now asserted its authority to block Google from showing links to contemporary articles that contain truthful speech about controversial public disputes. Not only does the government want to implement the right to be forgotten; it wants to erase evidence of the fact that it has implemented the policy. That’s an unsettling new leap for a right that was initially pitched as a modest privacy measure.
Still, the silver lining here, at least from Google’s perspective, is that no European government can force Google to alter results on its American search engine. Despite decisions by the ECJ and the ICO, Google users around the world need only head over to American Google to get uncensored information.
