Brussels, 23/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - Google is getting rid of fewer and fewer links that are creating problems for Internet users. In September it refused almost 72% of requests to get rid of links that were made in the context of the “right to forget” ruling on 13 May 2014 by the European Court of Justice (see EUROPE 11078). This observation was made by the Reputation VIP agency, whose work is based on protecting E-reputations, according to a report by the AFP. The study focused on 15,000 requests to remove these links made in 30 different countries.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (C-131/12) decided that individuals have the right to stop internet browsers using links to pages that included obsolete or inaccurate personal information. In response to this ruling, Google put a formula online on its European sites on 30 May and has so far received 125,000 requests focusing on 470,000 pages. According to Reputation VIP, Google has therefore toughened up its response to these requests over the past few months. According to the study, between 23 and 29 June, 57% of requests obtained a positive response, and three months later in September, 72% were refused.
Over the past three months, Google has refused an average of 60% of requests for 11 different reasons, according to the study. Most frequently (in 26% of cases), the internet giant said that the information involved the professional life of internet users and not their private lives. Other reasons for refusing mentioned by Google involve: the fact that internet users themselves are the authors of the content (a photo or a ticket to a forum that he or herself posted, for example); information that is still contemporary; or the fact that the party making the request is a public figure (artist, star, journalist, TV presenter, politician, business leader etc.). At the end of July, during a meeting with the Article 29 Group, made up of national data protection authorities, Google indicated that it was currently proceeding to the examination of 91,000 suppression requests out of a total of 328,000 links. The internet search engine agreed to get rid of more than half of the withdrawal requests, in other words, a total of more than 150,000 links were partially withdrawn by the search engine. On the other hand, 30% of requests for withdrawal were rejected. (SP)