Why is Google scrubbing some of its search results in Europe?
Amid pressure from Europe's internet privacy regulators, Google will begin removing search links from all of its domains accessed in European countries based on individuals' requests in an effort to scrub 'inadequate, irrelevant ... or excessive' results.
A man walks past a building on the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif. The tech giant will begin scrubbing its search results in an effort to placate European privacy regulators and avoid fines in the European Union.
Jeff Chiu/AP/File
In an effort to appease Europe's privacy regulators,聽Google is set to change how its search results are displayed for European users.
The American tech giant has stood in conflict with European officials on the issue of whether to allow the removal of search results pertaining to individuals, at their request, since the European Union鈥檚 Court of Justice in 2014. This 鈥渞ight to be forgotten,鈥� as it is known, has been championed by European privacy advocates, but Google says the practice could affect Internet users鈥� freedom.
The EU court鈥檚 ruling was made to protect 鈥渢he fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons (in particular the right to privacy) when personal data are processed, while removing obstacles to the free flow of such data,鈥� according to the tribunal鈥檚 decision. Google, while in compliance with the regulation in Europe regarding data related to people that is 鈥渋nadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive,鈥� is fighting to avoid having to enforce the policy globally.
France's data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de l'informatique et des Libert茅s (CNIL), to apply the EU court regulations to all of its search engine domains, not just on Google鈥檚 European pages. , calling the request a 鈥渄evelopment that risks serious chilling effects on the web.鈥�
鈥淲hile the right to be forgotten may now be the law in Europe, it is not the law globally,鈥� Peter Fleischer, Google鈥檚 Global Privacy Counsel, wrote in a 2015 blog post for the company.
鈥淚f the CNIL鈥檚 proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world鈥檚 least free place,鈥� Mr. Fleischer said. 鈥淲e believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access.鈥�
鈥淎s a matter of principle, therefore, we respectfully disagree with the CNIL鈥檚 assertion of global authority on this issue,鈥� he wrote.
Since beginning to consider delisting European results in the wake of the Court of Justice directive, Google has been transparent regarding the process. of the number of web addresses it has 鈥渇orgotten鈥� on its search engine in Europe, which indicates that 42.5 percent of the more than 1.3 million removal requests it has received were delisted.
While Google is still not considering the implementation of delisting requests worldwide, it will begin the practice of scrubbing search results that passed the removal review within the country that the removal request originated, regardless of which of its domains is used to process the search. So if a delisting request of French origin is approved, the affected link will not appear on any of Google's domains if searched within France. This means the results would not only be affected in searches on google.fr, but any of Google's pages including google.com.
Google will maintain the new policy by checking users鈥� IP addresses, which can usually be used to identify where people are accessing the Internet.聽The new scrubbing effort will only affect users in European Union member countries, so searches blocked on google.com or other domains in Europe will still remain accessible elsewhere.
A CNIL spokeswoman neither affirmed or decried Google's move, saying that the 鈥�,鈥� and that 鈥淭hese elements are currently the object of an inquiry by the services of the CNIL,鈥� according to Reuters.