Google Asked To Delist 2.4 Million URLs Under The EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' Law

Google has shared new data regarding the request it receives for URL removal under its Transparency Report. The search giant has received over 2.4 million requests for removing the URLs from the European countries. According to the “right to be forgotten” law of Europe, which is active since 2014, anyone can ask the search engines to remove the inaccurate or wrong results about them. Since 29 May 2017, Google has received 654876 requests and 2437,271 URLs has been requested for delisting.

In the report Google also shared details like a number of requests it received over the time, the number of the delisted URLs, categories of the requesters, categories of content and websites hosting the requested URLs and delisting rate since the law introduced. Google mentioned in the report that out of total requested URLs 43.3 percent of them have been delisted and 56.7 percent aren’t. The company reasoned ‘existence of alternative solutions’ & some technical issues for not delisting some of the URLs.

All the requesters have been divided by Google into two categories, Private individual, and others. According to the company’s data, 88.7 percent of the requests were from Private individuals. Further breaking down the delisting request on the bases of website hosting content requested, Google found that social media websites lead the request count with 49.2 percent. Whereas Directories and News hosting websites were comprising 19.1 percent and 17.6 percent of the requests respectively. In addition, the shared information also shows that insufficient ‘information’ and ‘professional’ information were the major categories of content requested for removal. The delisting rate graph shows how the Social media and directories were among the most requested content for removal throughout the years.

The ‘right to be forgotten’ given by the Europe Court of Justice provides enabled individual in Europe to ask Google for removing certain results about them. The search engine has to review the content and if it is inaccurate, insufficient, irrelevant or against the public interest. it is subjected to removal.

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Manish Content Strategist

With a mixture of literature, cinema, and photography, Manish is mostly traveling. When he is not, he is probably writing another tech news for you!

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