In Europe, Google will scrub your embarrassing search results
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Bowing to a decision from the European Union's highest court, Google will honor Europeans' "right to be forgotten" from search results. To that end, Google created a webpage late Thursday where users can request unflattering information about themselves be deleted from search results.
It's unclear when and how such links would be removed. "We will assess each individual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information," Google said.
That means there's no guarantee that any given link will be scraped from Google's European search results. Among other things, Google will consider if the disputed link includes outdated information and if there's public interest in the information — such as criminal convictions or a politician's run-in with the law.
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Jordan Valinsky is the lead writer for Speed Reads. Before joining The Week, he wrote for New York Observer's tech blog, Betabeat, and tracked the intersection between popular culture and the internet for The Daily Dot. He graduated with a degree in online journalism from Ohio University.
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