Google is being forced to remove global links or pay a large fine of up to €300,000. This is part of the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” rule. France’s data protection agency gave Google a total of 15 days to comply with the ruling.
Google’s debacle started in 2014. The European Union’s Court of Justice granted citizens of the EU the right to request the removal of irrelevant search queries involving their names. The search engine is required to review the requests and grant them when specific conditions are met.
Google’s current problem with EU
The search giant already removed results believed to target European users. The company removed links like google.fr and google.de. Internet users in France must access the Google.com link through Google.fr.
The French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (which is also known as the CNIL) received hundreds of complaints from people who claim the company denied their requests. The search giant has since been ordered to grant their requests after assessing the complaints. CNIL stated:
“In accordance with the CJEU judgement, the CNIL considers that in order to be effective, delisting must be carried out on all extensions of the search engine and that the service provided by Google search constitutes a single processing.”
Google’s search removal
The search results requested for removal should be removed regardless of the extension. In the meantime, the company has removed search results within the EU exclusively. The company claims the ruling applies to European searches and global searches. Google knows how to find domains from European users. It even uses the same technique to redirect users to more localized search engines.
Google has yet to respond to questions, and it has not provided an answer as to why it fails to remove search results if the address is initially accessed via a European IP.
