The French government's data protection agency has rejected Google's appeal against a request to apply the "
Right to be Forgotten" to all search results, not just European results. The Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) is now threatening to fine Google for non compliance, with the possibility of the search giant paying €300,000 ($335,000) at first, potentially increasing as time goes on to a maximum of 5 percent of global operating costs.
In June,
CNIL ordered for Google to apply the right to be forgotten, the European measure that requires search engines to remove certain results following a request from citizens, to all search engines it operates. Google
fought back in an appeal in July, claiming it to be bad for Internet users, and CNIL's demand as a "troubling development that risks serious chilling effects on the web."
The Guardian reports CNIL President Falque-Pierrotin rejected the appeal outright. Among the
reasons given was the insistence that "geographical extensions are only paths giving access to a processing operation," namely that since searches occur through the same general database, the ruling applies to all regional results. The fact that a user could easily find blocked searches through Google.com instead of using their national search service was also noted to be an issue, defeating the point of the original European Court of Justice ruling.
For the moment, Google has no option to appeal against the order. If it chooses to ignore CNIL and face the potentially expensive sanctions, Google will then have the opportunity to appeal both the fine and the decision through the supreme court for administrative justice, the Conseil d'Etat.
A Google spokesperson claims Google has already worked hard to
implement the Right to be Forgotten in Europe. "But as a matter of principle, we respectfully disagree with the idea that one national data protection authority can assert global authority to control the content that people can access around the world."
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