Google is braced for a showdown with European privacy watchdogs over demands the continent’s “right to be forgotten” online is extended across the world, with sensitive links stripped from all global versions of the search engine.
Executives from Google and Microsoft will meet representatives from Europe’s data protection groups in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the implementation of the dramatic ruling in May by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The court gave citizens the right to ask internet search engines to remove embarrassing or sensitive results for queries that include their name.
People with knowledge of the matter said the watchdogs intend to raise a number of issues, arguing the US company’s response to the ECJ ruling has been inadequate. Among the calls from the group of 28 national privacy watchdogs is the removal of links from all versions of the search engine.
This would mean that links expunged from Google’s French, German or British sites, would also be stripped from Google.com, its American search engine. Privacy groups have complained that, because it is technically easy to access international versions of Google, removing links only from European sites is an ineffective response to the ECJ ruling.
(Published by Financial Times – July 23, 2014)