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 results . The “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 either offensive, harmful or irrelevant. Following a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Google and all search engines must respond to the requests of any citizen who considers that the information does not conform to reality in order for it to be withdrawn and never appear in the results list again. This ruling caused a staggering number of petitions because in just one month, from May 29 to June 30, 70,000 applications were registered. Since then, and unsurprisingly, the will to be forgotten has moderated to the current 120,000 requests. As we have been able to read in the specialized portal Portaltic , the total number of pages eliminated at the express request of users amounts to 457,000 . The time required to correct the searches ranges between 10 and 15 days. To exercise the “ right to be forgotten ”, any European citizen can contact Google by providing a form to be completed attaching in it 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 for which the withdrawal of that information and an explanation of why the information contained in the links is irrelevant, outdated or inappropriate . Once the application is processed, the American multinational based in California will examine if the results referred to include outdated information, as well as if there is public interest in that information, such as financial scams, negligence, criminal convictions. or public behavior of officials. It should be noted that Google only removes the results for specific searches for name and surname, not when it is done for specific facts.