Google Inc. received 12,000 online requests on the first day the "right to be forgotten" rule went into effect.
On Thursday, the search engine giant announced that it would start accepting online requests from users to remove personal and sensitive information considered outdated, irrelevant and excessive from search results, beginning Friday, May 30. Interested users would need to fill out an online form so that Google could work with the European Union in taking down the page or link. The decision was in compliance with an EU ruling that name it the "right to be forgotten" rule.
Day 1 became a hit for European users, as Google stated that the company received 12,000 requests across Europe. The online form piled up 20 per minute, Firstpost reported.
Privacy became a hot topic in Europe after Mario Costeja Gonzales of Spain complained against Google in EU for showing links of a 1998 newspaper article related to the repossession of his home. This was just one of the 220 complaints filed against the search engine giant.
Google CEO Larry Page stated that his company would comply with the EU ruling. He clarified though that only personal data would be removed; public information such as pertinent articles would be retained.
"It will be used by other governments that aren't as forward and progressive as Europe to do bad things," Page said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, Domenico Colella, a lawyer at Orsingher Ortu in Milan, told Businessweek that EU made a wrong decision to force Google to act as a "cyberspace's policeman, since from a technical point of view it's an impossible task to remove every single link."
The online form also drew criticisms from Hamburg's privacy watchdog for requiring users to submit ID cards for authentication. Critics said the act violated German law.
