The search engine leader, Google Inc., finally made available the request forms for data removal, it received, on its first day, 12,000 requests alone. After a ruling made by the European Court of Justice, individuals were given the right to demand search engines such as Google to remove undesirable or inaccurate information and data that’s contained on the service of the search engine. While other search engines like Yahoo also have to deal with this issue, Google seems to be the major hit because of its influence. The American search engine was very disappointed by the court’s ruling. A spokesman of the search engine stated that now Google was put into the position of deciding whether it is the public’s right to know or the individual has the right to be forgotten.
90% of the web search in Europe is processed by Google while the remaining is dealt by other search engines. Google has made a web form available that can be downloaded by individuals wishing to get their data removed. The data could be removed on the basis that it is inappropriate, no longer of relevance or if it has been misused. Unfortunately, this facility has only been provided to the citizens of Europe. If their request to be forgotten is accepted, they will only be invisible to the people using the search engine in Europe and not in America as no such ruling has been made there. The web engine, however, has not answered how rapidly the data will be removed as yet. The staff at Google itself will look into the removal requests and judge if the request is justified rather than letting software make these decisions.
Moreover, Google might have agreed to remove data but, the information present on web will not vanish completely. The findings will only be altered to match the requirements set by the Union and service the rights of the individuals. The results will not be simply removed outright, but the individual would have to fill the form and state the reason as to why the data should be removed along with proof of identity to prevent others from taking advantage. Google has also set up a consultative committee to help it make difficult judgments. The advisory council will consist of Luciano Floridi, the ethics professor at Oxford Internet Institute, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and the Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt.
Mr. Floridi was of the opinion that a touch of philosophical thoughts was required with some hard thinking. He further added that he was indeed honored to be a part of this International committee set up by Google, which was taking on the challenges, legitimate and ethical, modelled by the internet. A Spanish Man, Mario Costeja Gonzalez, was responsible for bringing about this case which led the tech giant to successfully remove the search results of his 16-year deep-rooted articles about his home being repossessed that he deems personal and irrelevant and doesn’t want to share with the public.