Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU objections

Google will start scrubbing search results across all its websites when accessed from a European country to soothe the objections of Europe's privacy regulators to its implementation of a landmark European Union ruling, apparently. Google has been at loggerheads with several EU data protection authorities since the European Court of Justice ruled in May 2014 that people could ask search engines such as Google and Microsoft's Bing to remove inadequate or irrelevant information that appears under searches for their name - dubbed the "right to be forgotten". The French data protection authority in September threatened to fine Google if it did not scrub search results globally across all versions of its website, such as Google.com. But the company has stuck to its position that it should clean up search results only on European domains such as Google.fr or Google.de because to do otherwise would have a chilling effect on the free flow of information.

Apparently, to address the concerns of European authorities, the search engine company will soon start polishing search results across all its websites when someone conducts a search from the country where the removal request originated. That means that if a German resident asks Google to de-list a link popping up under searches for his or her name, the link will not be visible on any version of Google's website, including Google.com, when the search engine is accessed from Germany. The company will filter search results according to a user's IP address, meaning people accessing Google from outside Europe will not be affected, apparently.