FollowGoogle is threatened with a $100 million lawsuit over the nude celebrity pictures that have been splashed all over the internet following the iCloud hack. Earlier this week, Google has removed over 170,000 links after being forced to do so by the European right to be forgotten.
Right to be Forgotten
Even though the removal has nothing to do with the iCloud nude celebrity pictures, the issue is somewhat similar. If you haven’t heard of the Right to be Forgotten, you should know that it is a ruling made by the European Court of Justice that gives people the power to request the removal of links to content that they no longer want to appear online.
Such requests are being sent out to Google for it to remove them from its search engines. This ruling only applies in the countries inside the European Union, so Google won’t show the content inside the EU, but if you search for it from the U.S. you will find it. Basically, only the links are removed from the search engine, not the content.
Up until now, Google has received about 150,000 requests, which add up to half a million links to be removed. After careful examination, it went on to remove 41% of it, or 171,183 links, leaving the rest online.
This measure has been dubbed by Tim-Berners Lee, Word Wide Web founder, as draconian. He joins the many Internet freedom advocates who are protesting the Right to be Forgotten ruling.
So what were the websites the people wanted to delete themselves from? Facebook tops the list, followed by Profile Engine and YouTube. France was the country with the most requests, followed closely by Germany, Britain and Spain.
Would you want to have links to content of you removed from the web? Would you want the Right to be Forgotten to come to the U.S.? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
