Google Blocks Certain Search Results In Europe

Google decides to block certain search results in Europe to address the concerns of European privacy regulators.

Google continues to play hide and seek game with privacy regulators of Europe by making more changes as to how people see search results in the continent. The search company will soon suspend access to some disputed links from its every domain including Google.com – main U.S. one – when people residing in the European region use its online search bar. Sources asked to remain anonymous.

The measure is the most recent effort made by the Californian organization to act according to a privacy ruling by European apex court in May 2014, while also striving to reduce damages to the huge international database of the company.

The judgment, called the “right to be forgotten”, was appreciated by a huge number of European data privacy officials, compelled the technology giant to abide by the strict privacy regulations of the region, even when those regulations didn’t facilitate the its objective to provide unfettered details to people across the world.

The ruling given in 2014 allowed everyone connected to the European region to ask search bars like Microsoft’s Bing service and Google to delete links to details about themselves, if they demonstrate the details were wrong, no longer interesting for the public, or not relevant anymore.

The search engine developer, which provides 90% of the online search results in Europe, told that it has made its best efforts to follow the privacy ruling but the judgment must be limited to EU’s 28 states (and other countries of Europe, such as Norway).

Since May 2014, the company has given approval to two-fifth of 386,000 requests by people to delete links, the transparency report of the organization revealed.

European states, especially France, have continued to legally pressurize Google. France said Google has failed to do enough. At issue is a difference between American and European attitudes towards privacy. The law of Europe sees the right to privacy of people and freedom of expression equally important.

In contrast to that, in the US, privacy is usually seen as a right of user, and not at the same level as First Amendment protections for the free flow of information. The judgment by the court in 2014 was given regarding the case of Spanish lawyer Mario Costeja González who criticized that his name on the search bar resulted in the issuance of legal notices from 1998 that discussed his forced sale of property and debts. The lawyer said the issues regarding debt were settle many years before and were not relevant anymore.