As one of the early results of the landmark ruling the story generated more media attention, which led to further articles being written repeating details of the complainant’s crime, prompting the person to request a further nine links be removed. The issue here is the internet, journalism, Google and people in general.
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While some see the requirement for Google to remove search results that link to pages that contain information about people that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” as a win for privacy, other see it as a form of censorship. Of course, that’s the entire controversy over the right to the forgotten.
In the ICO’s ruling Smith says that it is “not a case where the information is about an individual in public life or where making the information available would protect the public from improper or unprofessional conduct” and that “the information is not reasonably current”.
The UK government orders Google to remove Right to be forgotten stories from its search results.
The 2014 ruling by Europe’s highest court ordered Google and other search engines to consider and remove requests from individuals who wish to have links to news and information about them removed from search results. The ICO has not contested this argument, but does not believe the complaint’s name should bring up the search results when typed into Google.
The agency’s deputy commissioner, David Smith, seemed aware of the bizarre implications.
“The commission does not dispute that journalistic content relating to decisions to delist search results may be newsworthy and in the public interest”, he wrote.
Google and European regulators continue to fight over which links ought to be removed under the controversial “right to be forgotten”. The Telegraph also published details of link removals affecting its website. “But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant’s name”.
“The European court ruling last year was clear that links prompted by searching on an individual’s name are subject to data protection rules”.
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“We understand that links being removed…is something that newspapers want to write about”. Think about it: Google removes links about your sordid past from its search engine, but then adds a news story about that link removal that still includes your name and the old misdemeanor.
