Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) appointed a panel that will carry its first meeting on Tuesday discussing over the fine tuning between privacy and the free flow of information following the May court ruling that ordered the search engine giant to abide by “Right to be forgotten” rule.
Google muddled with requests
Meeting, which is first in the series of the forthcoming such discussions, will be held in Madrid amid Google trying to handle thousands of request every month from the customers to remove their requested information from the search engine page such as serious criminal records, embarrassing photos, instances of online bullying and negative press stories.
Google, which dominates over 80% of the European market, stated that it has received more than 90,000 requests, and has processed more than half after the court gave Europeans the right to ask the search engine to remove their unwanted info. Data protection watchdogs will hold their next meeting on September 15th and are currently trying to design guidelines for the search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to make sure they are accepting and processing the request consistently.
An individual can appeal to the national data protection regulator in case any of the search engines turns down the request to delete the content. Around 90 people have already knocked on the regulator’s door in Britain followed by 70 in Spain, 20 in France and 13 in Ireland.
Regulators doubting Google Inc efforts
France Privacy regulator head Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin stated that she is doubtful over the efforts made by Google, and described the actions as a part of PR war on an issue that was vital for the business strategy of the company. She said that Google is trying to decide the terms of debate.
Falque-Pierrotin stated, “They want to be seen as being open and virtuous, but they handpicked the members of the council, will control who is in the audience, and what comes out of the meetings.”
The search engine giant sent a letter to French regulator Falque-Pierrotin asking if she or other regulators would like to join the meeting, says a report from Reuters. However, Pierrotin denied saying that it would be inapt for the regulators, who have enforcement powers to join the meeting. She said that some national regulators can send the staff members in the meeting.
