Google Reinstating Some 'Forgotten' Links

An anonymous reader writes Only days after receiving harsh criticism from all corners of the internet for taking down links to news articles, Google has started to reinstate those links. Google's Peter Barron denied that they were simply granting all "right to be forgotten" requests. "The European Court of Justice [ECJ] ruling was not something that we welcomed, that we wanted — but it is now the law in Europe and we are obliged to comply with that law," he said. Still, Google's actions are being called "tactical" for how quickly they were able to stir public dissent over the EU ruling. "It's convenient, then, that it's found a way to get the media to kick up the fuss for it: there are very few news organisations in the world who are happy to hear their output is being stifled. A few automated messages later, the story is back in the headlines – and Google is likely to be happy about that."

Comments

Censorship through comment

[biodata]

The Preston case was particularly pernicious - a whole article disappears from search results just because one person adds a comment to the article then decides to 'retract' their comment because 'it is not relevant any more'. It would have introduced a very easy attack route for anyone to take down any article they didn't like by posting a comment then asking Google to retract it thus hiding the whole article.

Re:Censorship through comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Google did not hide the whole article. The article will no longer be returned when users search for the name of the *commenter*. Searches using Preston's name should still link to the full article unless Preston was the one that requested that it be removed from the index for queries on his name. Similarly, searches based on the content of the article that do not include any of the "forgotten" names will still link to the article.