Google must be transparent about 'right to be forgotten' deletions, publishers say

Photograph: ANDREA COMAS/REUTERS

Publishers have urged Google to reveal more about how it decides what information to remove from its search results under the 'right to be forgotten' at a public event in London.

The search company is running a series of public consultations across Europe discussing its implementation of a controversial European court ruling granting the right for people to ask for inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated information about them to be removed from search results.

Speaking to an advisory council led by Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt, speakers from the Guardian and BBC raised cases of news reports being affected by Google's removals with very little explanation.

David Jordan, the BBC's Director of Policy and Standards, said BBC content including trial reports of real IRA members had been affected by Google's decision to remove search results.

He also raised the issue of content unrelated to removal requests being de-indexed because people had the same name as those who had requested search results be removed.

Jordan urged Google to provide publishers with much more information as to how they made their decisions, describing a 'lack of formal appeal process and lack of information about the search terms that have been disabled'.

He also stated that publishers should be informed in advance when Google was considering removing links to their content, so as to give a chance to weigh in on the decision.

Chris Moran, the Guardian's digital audience editor, echoed many of the same concerns, raising details of a series of articles relating to the harassment of a public figure - who he did not name - which had been removed under the ruling with no detailed explanation from Google.

'My recommendation would be: engage, engage with us about the removal of individual links,' he said. 'I've moved to a position that each case needs to be evaluated on case-by-case basis.'

Google established its advisory council on the right to be forgotten, which includes outside figures such as Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and Sylvie Kauffmann of Le Monde, in response to criticism of its early decisions on the right to be forgotten, which included removing and then reinstating a series of articles relating to a Scottish referee who lied about his reasons for granting a penalty.

Google's final public meeting of its advisory council will take place in Brussels on 4 November.

* Google's grand European tour aims to map out the future of data ethics