Tom PowellMORE than 1,000 people have asked Google to remove details of their past from searches, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice.
The Court ruled unexpectedly in favour of a new ‘right to be forgotten’, giving people the power to ask for ‘inadequate, irrelevant or excessive’ material about them to be dropped from search engines.
Critics have already likened the decision to strict, state-imposed internet restrictions in China.
Spanish citizen Mario Costeja Gonzalez had his house sold by the Government after falling into debt with social security in 1988.
The court ruled that Google can no longer give links to the advert for his house’s sale when his name is searched.
Similar requests have now flooded in, including one man who has demanded Google remove links to a story about an incident in which he tried to kill his own family.
It has been reported that most of the requests coming in are from people with criminal convictions.
An actor who had an affair with a teenager has asked for links to all related news stories to be wiped from Google searches.
British broadcaster the BBC has also received requests for its search engine to stop calling up past stories that people want out of the public domain.
if someone has been convicted of a criminal act and it was reported then the info is in the Public Domain and i cannot see how legally it can be forced to be deleted
if someone were to be harged with a criminal act and no further action taken or they were found innocent /it may be the cases where legally the info can be removed