Google Complies With Europe's Right To Be Forgotten Ruling; CDT Says Bad Precedent Set

the issue. Reuters said Google had been fighting with European privacy regulators over a May 2014 ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that the company scrub search results of individuals who made such requests. It said the French regulator threatened to fine the company if it didn't delete search results "globally across all versions of its website, such as Google.com." The company acquiesced, Reuters said. As of Thursday, Google said it has received nearly 386,000 requests for removals. It has removed more than 492,000 URLs, or about 43 percent of the total evaluated. Jens-Henrik Jeppesen, Center for Democracy & Technology European affairs director, wrote in a blog post Thursday that his group is "sympathetic" to people concerned that some of their personal information is available publicly, but the ECJ ruling "enables broad restriction of access to lawful, public information, and as such, it inevitably curbs free expression." Plus, the court's guidance is "so vague" it's unclear what removal requests should be approved and which should not. Jeppesen said more repressive governments may demand that "their censorship laws should be applied to global domains when accessed from their countries. That would be a serious step back for dissidents and others who seek to promote human rights and democracy in their countries."