Boston, MA 08/04/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) will no longer search one of the links connecting to a Wikipedia article as it attempts to conform with the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) legislation of ‘Right to be Forgotten’.
First Removal For Wikipedia
The news is revealed by Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales, who said that Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) will remove one of the link directing to Wikipedia in a bid to honor the ECJ’s decision and an individual’s request. Though the web page will continue to exist on Wikipedia, but it will not be included in Google’s search results, and the change will take effect “within days”. The identity of the person requesting the removal of link has not been disclosed so far. This will be the very first time when an entry in the world’s largest online encyclopedia will be eliminated from Google’s search results, alongside the removal of links available on other web pages as well.
ECJ had awarded a decision in May, backing ‘Right to be Forgotten Law’ when it said that Google as well as other search engines should honor the privacy of an individual and should remove content that appears to intrude privacy of a person. Also, ECJ had asked the search providers to act speedily in removing links attached with the requests, which if not, would be imposed by the authorities.
Flooded With Requests
During last week, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) revealed that it has accepted and took action on nearly half of the requests received under the Right to be Forgotten. During a meeting with European regulators, Google specified that it received over 90,000 requests to remove 328,000 links, out of which, it has complied with half of them. But, still the search engine giant is subject to sharp criticism from the regulators. France and Germany topped the list of requestors with 17,500 and 16,500 of such requests respectively. Britain, Spain and Italy followed with 12,000, 8,000 and 7,500 removal requests.
The statistics show that people might be happy with ECJ’s decision, but Wales is clearly not. Time and again, he has objected to the law as it appears insane to him. Wales is appointed as a panel member for framing guidance for search engines as how they should manage removal requests.
