Tech blogs practically blew up last
week, as the highest EU court ruled that ordinary people have a ‘right to be
forgotten’ on Google. What could this mean going forward?
Google Rankings and Online Reputation
Oliver Rawlings blog readers,
whether you like it or not, until this moment you haven’t really had too much
control over what showed for your name on Google. If you did something stupid
years ago and somebody wrote about it, it would be up there, and unless it was
defamatory, there wasn’t much you could do to get rid of it.
Naturally, this made a lot of
people angry, as silly mistakes that they had long left behind came back to haunt them in later life, often stopping
them from getting jobs, securing business etc. This could now be a thing of the
past, at least in the EU, thanks to the case that established the ‘right to be
forgotten.’
The Case That Established the ‘Right to be Forgotten’
The case itself was lodged by a
Spanish citizen who asserted that an auction notice on his repossessed home
that featured on Google invaded his privacy. He said that a search for his name
brought up newspaper articles of the auction from 16 years ago that were
outdated and no longer relevant.
From there, the case pitted the
Spanish mans right to privacy against Google’s legendary endorsement of blanket
freedom of speech. It went all the way to the highest EU court, The European
Union Court of Justice.
Google lost. In its ruling, the
court found that Google must remove search results when specifically asked to
by ordinary people, in cases where it is “outdated” or “irrelevant.” The
exceptions lie in the concept of public interest, so an active politician, for
example, would not be eligible, because the public has an interest in their
prior conduct.
The Removal Exodus Has Begun
The ramifications of this ruling
are already hitting home. The BBC reported that it
had found that one ex politician has already lodged removal requests. Going
forward at the moment, it means that you can use the normal Google Removal tool
to request the search engine take down data falling under the rulings remit.
