A European Court decision forces Google to remove links to an outdated story.
The ruling was quite narrow, but many fear that a bad precedent has been set.
The case based on a complaint by a Spanish man who had got into financial difficulties in the 1990's and failed to pay a tax on time. But the fact that he later resolved the problem and paid off his debts was not recorded, so a Google search gave an inaccurate picture of how he managed his affairs.
Some commentators are confused about the difference between links and the actual story itself. The story is like a book on a library shelf - to read the story you find your way to the library and locate the book. Google has no control over the library or the books within. The only thing that Google controls is one of the roads to the library. There are other roads; they are just not as well-known as Google's one.
Google has said that it will set up a committee to decide policy, and will individually vet each request for a link to be removed. It has said that it will reject applications about professional malpractice, recent criminal convictions and the public conduct of governmental officials.
It is unlikely that they will agree to remove links to criminal convictions, if these can be considered relevant. It's not black-and-white - a child molester, obviously, but a 10 year old conviction for drunkenness?
But will it make sense for people to ask for the links to be suppressed? There are good reasons for believing that the request will be self-defeating.
Google has said that it will put a notice on the page saying that the search is incomplete to comply with EU law. That in itself will be a red flag that the person has something to hide, and should prompt a search using another search engine, or by using a proxy to pretend you are in the US, rather than In Europe.
Google can easily circumvent the ruling by publishing a list of everyone who applies for suppression, although this may not fit easily with their stated desire to become more Euro-friendly.
Anti-censorship activists will find it easy to establish who is asking for suppression, even if Google chooses not to publish a list. (Easy way would be to set up a twitter account that people could update every time they find someone with a flagged search result). Once they know the names, it will be simple to subvert the ruling by writing a blog recording the fact that the person has applied, and what the information is that they are trying to conceal. Google can then freely link to this new and thus relevant story.
The takeaway is that requesting suppression of links to data you don't like may actually draw more attention to them.
