The Wall Street Journal reported on July 24, 2014 that Google has now removed more than 100,000 links requested as part of the Right to Be Forgotten court ruling. The May ruling made it possible for individuals to request a link be removed from the search results the individual deemed to be erroneous, embarrassing or unwanted.
According to the WSJ, Google has received requests from 91,000 individuals covering 328,000 URLs since May when it began accepting requests. And, not all requests have been processed.
One report is that Google has rejected a little more than 30% of the requests, while another source told the WSJ that the company had approved “more than 50%” of the requests. The requests are spread across most of Europe as you might expect.
- 17,500 from France
- 16,500 from Germany
- 12,000 from UK
- 8,000 from Spain
- 7,500 from Italy
- 5,000 from the Netherlands
Microsoft, Bing and the broader SEO industry are watching to see how the law is interpreted, implemented and accepted.