Google has removed over half a million links from their search engine results in order to comply with a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2014 that allows users the "right to be forgotten."
Out of 1.2 million URLs that the search giant has evaluated for removal since the launch of their official request process in May 2014, 42.1 percent have been removed from their search results so far, according to Google's transparency report, which was released on Wednesday. This means that over half of the requests have been denied, usually on grounds that "it is in the public interest" to keep the results available.
Google cites some examples of requests they have received in their transparency report, including an article naming a person involved in a minor crime, (which they removed from the search results for that person's name), and a high-ranking public official's request to remove an article detailing a criminal conviction for a crime committed decades prior (which they did not remove).
Almost 10 percent of the URLs submitted are from only 10 websites, with social media giant Facebook topping the list. Other websites named include Google Plus, YouTube and Twitter.
Other search engine giants are also following suit, including Microsoft's Bing, which received over 3,000 removal requests in the first half of this year, according to AFP.
The "right to be forgotten" ruling currently only applies to search engine results in the person's own country, but French agency Commission Nationale de L'Informatique et des Libertés wants to ensure that URLs are removed from Google's sites globally, The Wall Street Journal reported back in September.
There is some worry about the fact that the ultimate decision to exclude an URL from the search results comes from Google. "Google is taking decisions that are publicly relevant. As such, it is becoming almost like a court or government, but without the fundamental checks on its power," said Stefan Kulk, a Dutch researcher specialising in the liabilities of search engine providers, who uncovered accidentally leaked data on "right to be forgotten" requests in July 2015, according to The Guardian.
