Following a ruling from a European Court that said people have a “right to be forgotten,” Google has started removing offending links from its index today. The ruling was handed down last May and Google has been “working round the clock to comply,” the search engine’s website says. That process included putting together a “removals team” and collecting requests for link removal on this form.
Requests for link removal require complainants to identify all the links they want scrubbed from Google and argue that those links fit the EU’s criteria, which says the information must be “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed.”
When a user’s request is granted — and it’s currently unclear how many people will actually get Google to comply — they get an email from the company and the peace of mind that comes with knowing their boss will never find out about that shameful thing they did years ago — unless their boss uses Bing.
