Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer wrote in a blogpost that the CNIL’s request was a troubling development that risks serious chilling effects on the web.
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A 2014 court ruling allows Europeans to submit applications to Google to remove data from search results that they thought were out of date, irrelevant or inflammatory.
As you might have heard, Google in Europe agreed that they would entertain requests for the right to be forgotten, basically giving internet users a chance to have information about themselves delisted on Google’s search pages. Last month on June 12th, the French government passed a ruling urging Google to expand the “Right To Be Forgotten” on a global scale, and today Google is announcing their refusal to comply with this ruling.
Google said yesterday it will “respectfully disagree” with the watchdog’s demands, adding that it has asked for the formal notice to be removed.
Google is denying a French request that it remove search results worldwide under the “right to be forgotten doctrine”.
However, a Google-convened panel of privacy experts said in February that the rights of EU citizens had to be balanced with those of people in other countries, who may have the right to see the offending information under their own national laws. “There are innumerable examples around the world where content that is declared illegal under the laws of one country would be deemed legal in others”, Fleischer continued, referencing Thailand’s ban on insulting its king and Russia’s restriction of “gay propaganda“.
EU antitrust regulators in April escalated their four-year- old probe into Google.
While Google will now be subject to fines for not complying with the order, the amounts are relatively minimal.
The CNIL said it would examine Google’s appeal and decide whether to accept it in two months. “Whenever a request meets the criteria set by the court, we delist it from search results for that individual’s name from all European versions of Google Search”.
“We have taken note of Google’s arguments which are mostly of a political nature”. Google also said content that one country finds offensive could be legal in other nations, such as websites that speak out against the government.
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Though European authorities are more concerned over the right to privacy of their residents, U.S. critics believe that the right to be forgotten may become a gateway to Internet censorship.
