Flooded with requests from a large number of users to remove links from search results, Google has put across the practical challenges associated with implementing the ruling to the European Union data protection committee.
The company told the Article 29 Working Party that it has received about 91,000 requests from users asking for removal of almost 328,000 links of which approximately 53 percent of the requests are approved.
Google noted that it has received 17,500 requests from France and 16,500 requests from Germany while Brits have sent 12,000 requests and those from Spain and Italy have sent 8,000 and 7,500 requests respectively.
There are a lot of controversies over the links being available on the international site Google.com and sites for other locations. Some European news firms also backfired for the removal of news stories published as a result of the concerned person’s requests.
Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer sent a 13 page letter with answers to the questions asked by the Article 29 committee about how the company is processing the requests, with explanations of the challenges in it.
Google, pointing out that it made a request form available within three weeks of the ruling, has asked the committee for advice. The company highlighted that some of the requests do not have an adequate reason for requesting the removal or a part of the reason is omitted such as the requester being a politician running for office and requesting the search engine to remove the links that point out the past crimes they were involved in. While some requests are from people asking to remove information related to somebody else with the same name.
