Google Ready to Comply With ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Rules in Europe

Your right to be forgotten on the Internet is almost here. Google will start to remove links to online content in Europe by the end of the month to comply with a recent landmark European court ruling intended to protect individuals’ privacy, according to sources with direct knowledge of the issue, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

This step follows a month-long effort by Google to comply with the European Court of Justice’s decision, which requires all search providers operating in Europe to consider people’s requests to remove links that they say violate their online privacy.

Google has already received more than 50,000 submissions from people asking the company to remove links. That includes more than 12,000 requests within the first 24 hours of the form’s being made available, according to one of the people with direct knowledge of the matter.

While the company will start to remove links by the end of June, the process is expected to take several weeks before it is fully operational. Google’s engineering teams -- both in Europe and further afield -- have been tweaking the company’s search infrastructure since the ruling was made in May.