Forget about me

The first requests were not long in coming and since last May, More than 120,000 people have sent Google their wish not to appear in search resultsThe “right to be forgotten” can be exercised when the interested party considers that the information provided by the world's largest search engine (or any of its alternatives) is offensive, harmful or not relevant.

Following a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Google and all search engines must respond to requests from all citizens who consider that the information is not true to the truth, so that it is removed and never appears again in the list of results. This ruling provoked an overwhelming number of requests, since in just one month, from May 29 to June 30, 70,000 requests were registered. Since then, and as expected, the desire to be forgotten has moderated, reaching the current 120,000 requests.

As we have been able to read on the specialized portal Portaltic, the total number of pages removed at the express request of users amounts to 457.000The time required to correct searches ranges from 10 to 15 days.

To exercise the “right to be forgotten”, any European citizen can contact Google to facilitate a form to be completed by attaching the address of the page that you want to stop appearing in the search engine, as well as a photo in the case of requests made by individuals, the reason why the removal of this information is requested and an explanation of why the information contained in the links is irrelevant, obsolete or inappropriate.

Once the request has been processed, the American multinational based in California will examine whether the results referred to include outdated information, as well as whether there is a public interest in that information, such as in the case of financial fraud, negligence, criminal convictions or public behavior of officials.

It should be noted that Google only removes results for specific searches for first and last names, not when the search is for specific facts.