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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Tech News > Google reveals it rejects majority of 'Right to be Forgotten' requests

Google reveals it rejects majority of 'Right to be Forgotten' requests
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NewsPoster
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May 14, 2015, 07:07 AM
 
Google is not fulfilling a high proportion of "Right to be Forgotten" requests, with more than half of requests being denied by the search company. According to its latest Transparency Report, Google has evaluated over 922 thousand requests for the removal of search listings since the program began last year, but out of that figure, 58.7 percent of all requests have been rejected.

The reasons behind the refusals are not advised completely, but Engadget notes the examples provided include users wanting to hide news stories about crimes they had committed, and people hiding their earlier online work to boost their profile. The site with the highest number of successful removal requests is unsurprisingly Facebook, followed by Profile Engine, Google Groups, YouTube, and Badoo. The top ten of these sites account for just eight percent of the successful removal requests.



The removal requests process has also come under fire recently, with the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) accusing Google of getting 48 decisions wrong. After receiving 183 complaints from the public and industry, the ICO told the BBC that it believed Google was not "quite right" with some of its decisions, and has requested revisions. If Google declines to make the changes without sufficient reason, the ICO may fine it or use an enforcement notice to push the changes through.

"In around three-quarters of these cases, we have ruled that Google was correct to turn down an individual's request to have their information removed," said an ICO spokesperson. "This suggests that, for the most part, Google is getting the balance right between the protection of the individual's privacy and the interest of Internet users." Even so, the representative advised there were still a "significant number of cases" where it believes Google made the wrong call.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; May 14, 2015 at 08:45 AM. )
     
Inkling
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May 14, 2015, 08:39 AM
 
All one needs to do is imagine Google and ICOcrats debating some of these removal requests to see the madness of this policy. At least in Orwell's grim 1984, a similar policy didn't result in a silly "Yes, you should" and "No we won't" squabble. The Ministry of Propaganda simply dictated what items were to be fed into the memory hole and which were not. What's going on here sounds like the Mony Python sketch about the dead parrot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
     
DiabloConQueso
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May 14, 2015, 10:42 AM
 
I may catch hell for partly agreeing with Google on this one, but it sounds like a lot of people want their public information scrubbed from the internet -- criminal records, published articles where they're mentioned, etc. -- and that stuff you just can't kill, because it doesn't really belong to you.

It is not Google's responsibility to hide your Maricopa County arrest record web page. That's something you need to take up with Maricopa County, because it's part of the public record. If you've had an article published about you or where you're mentioned, again, that's now been disseminated publicly and it's not Google's responsibility to help you hide that information.

It sounds like the majority of rejected requests center around these types of things, though I'm sure there have been legitimate requests that have been denied for one reason or another as well, or potentially just due to error on Google's part... but let's not jump the gun and blanket-judge Google and accuse them of heavy-handed, Orwellian-type rejections at their whim and mercy. That's clearly not what's going on here.

Perhaps it has to do with people's misunderstanding of what their "right to be forgotten" really entails. I believe too many people think that it affords them the right to force search engines to remove any information from the internet in which they're mentioned -- which is a complete misunderstanding of what it really is.
     
Grendelmon
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May 14, 2015, 11:11 AM
 
Originally Posted by Inkling View Post
All one needs to do is imagine Google and ICOcrats debating some of these removal requests to see the madness of this policy. At least in Orwell's grim 1984, a similar policy didn't result in a silly "Yes, you should" and "No we won't" squabble. The Ministry of Propaganda simply dictated what items were to be fed into the memory hole and which were not. What's going on here sounds like the Mony Python sketch about the dead parrot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
It's matter of public record. You've completely exaggerated any point that you were trying to make.
     
revco
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May 14, 2015, 09:10 PM
 
922 thousand? Interesting way of representing that number.
     
   
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