Has Google Bitten off More Than it Can Chew With Right To Be Forgotten?

A brand new panel appointed by search engine giant Google is kicking off a round of meetings across Europe this week, starting in Madrid, to debate its 'Right to be Forgotten' mantra.

Included in the ten-strong council is Google's former CEO and current executive chairman Eric Schmidt; Google's chief legal officer David Drummond; Jimmy Wales, the founder of Emeritus; Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger - a member of the German parliament and Spanish legal expert Jose-Luis Pinar.

According to recent reports and since the rule was backed by a top European Union court, Google is struggling with thousands of requests a month to remove a host of things from its search results including criminal records, dodgy photos, negative articles and instances of online bullying.

The vendor, which currently boasts more than 80 percent of Europe's search market, revealed that it has had over 90,000 requests and accepted more than half since the EU court agreed it must remove search results if the information was 'inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant'.

But on the other hand, Google has been accused of trying to rub out the past with this initiative. Indeed it has caused a lot of confusion among the general public, as many confuse the fact that their chosen article/picture/record is removed purely from Google's search facilities and not the internet as a whole. These articles can still be seen using other search engines.

Indeed a few media outlets have been contacted by people citing the 'Right to be Forgotten' as a means to taking down articles they don't agree with, or talking about legal cases they or their businesses have been involved in. Again, media outlets are not obliged to unpublish articles under this rule.

It is a very fine line Google is treading, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out further down the line.

To explain the formation of the panel in Google's own words: 'For each of these requests, we're required to weigh, on a case-by-case basis, an individual's right to be forgotten with the public's right to information.

'We want to strike this balance right. This obligation is a new and difficult challenge for us, and we're seeking advice on the principles Google ought to apply when making decisions on individual cases. That's why we're convening a council of experts.'

The council plans to publish its findings once all the meetings were complete.

Google added: 'The council will also invite contributions from government, business, media, academia, the technology sector, data protection organizations and other organizations with a particular interest in the area, to surface and discuss the challenging issues at the intersection of the right to information and the right to privacy.

'We also hope the Advisory Council's findings will also be useful to others that may be affected by the court's ruling. We all have a shared interest in giving proper effect to the Court's decision, finding the best possible balance on this issue.'