Chris Crum, staff reporter with Webpronews.com recently reported that Google has released a new process on how it will handle takedown requests as a result of the May 13, 2014 “right to be forgotten” ruling by the European Court of Justice. The ruling states that search engines including Google, must allow for search results about an individual to be removed if the individual deems it to be wrong, out-of-date and, unflattering.

Requests will be handled on a case-by-case basis. If the request is denied by the search engines, the individual can then take them to court and let a judge decide. Google has stated that it will only remove results from its European search engines and will note that information has been removed at the request of the individual.

Google is in the process of creating a system to manage these requests. In the meantime, the company has posted a request for removal form.

In a written statement, Google says, “When evaluating your request, we will look whether the results included outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information – for example, financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal conviction, or public conduct of government officials.”

Coincidentally, since the ruling, “31 percent of its requests have were related to fraud and scams, 20 percent related to arrests or convictions for violent or otherwise serious crimes, 12 percent were related to child pornography arrests, 5% were from government and police, 2 percent from celebrities, and 30% ‘other’,” according to the webpronews.com story.

Given Google’s feelings about censorship it is unlikely they will comply with these type or any other requests without significant and legitimate reasons.

It is still unclear what impact this may have on search engine optimization in Europe.