France Fines Google Over Right to be Forgotten

France’s data-protection regulator has slapped a fine on Alphabet’s Google for not implementing Europe’s “right to be forgotten” globally, rejecting a compromise offered by the search firm and setting up a court battle over the scope of the divisive rule.

France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés, or CNIL, said that the search engine had violated a formal order in 2015 ordering it to apply the new right to be forgotten to “all domain names” of the search engine, including google.com, and fined the company €100,000 ($112,000). As part of its decision, the regulator rejected a compromise offered by Google, in which it would apply the rule to all of its sites when they were accessed from an European Union country where a removal-request originated. A Google spokesman said the company would appeal the ruling, adding that “we disagree with the CNIL’s assertion that it has the authority to control the content that people can access outside France.” While the CNIL’s fine is a pittance for Google, compared with Alphabet’s annual revenue of $74.54 billion in 2015, both sides are fighting to set a precedent over how far the right to be forgotten can extend.