Google reinstates some links removed under ‘right to be forgotten’ law

Google has started to reinstate deleted search results to newspaper articles after admitting that its process of removing links under an EU 'right to be forgotten' law was suffering "teething problems", Irish Independent reported.

The search giant, with a workforce of 3,000 people in Dublin, had received 562 requests in Ireland for the removal of search result links to articles based on a search of a person's name.

The requests pertain to 1,962 different links. Google had declined comment on how many links it had deleted in Ireland or which media publications' articles had been most targeted.

According to the search giant, it was receiving 1,000 requests per day under the new law, which gave EU citizens a right to demand the removal of links to "irrelevant, outdated, inadequate or excessive" information about themselves.

The company added further that it had received 70,000 requests around Europe. The 562 Irish deletion requests compared with 8,497 deletion requests for UK, 12,678 for Germany and 14,086 for France.

The Guardian and the BBC were informed last week that Google searches linking to separate articles about the removal of former Merrill Lynch banker Stan O'Neal and a Scottish football referee, under the ruling. A number of links to the articles had now been reinstated after journalists and newspapers raised issues over it.

The new EU law, however, allowed 'public interest' exceptions to removal requests, decided by Google and the Data Protection Commissioner, Billy Hawkes.

Meanwhile, as thousands of people ask for the removal of their information, was Google trying its best to provide a workable solution or trying to undermine a ruling that, from the very start, it really did not like, asks Paul Bernal, a lecturer in information technology, intellectual property and media law, in an opinion piece in CNN.

Bernal said it created a headache -- and potentially huge costs -- for Google, and that it could open the door to a flood of cases, each of which would need a resolution.

He wrote that how Google responded to the ruling would be critical, and the initial signs were that the company's response had already caused problems.

Google has received a huge volume of requests for removal of over 40,000 links in the first four days after the ruling, and had now started the process of responding to them.