‘Privacy requests are no more difficult for Google than copyright takedowns’

A citizen’s request to remove sensitive posts from Google is no different from an entertainment company’s request to filter copyright infringements. That is the view of Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.

Since Google processes millions of takedown requests from entertainment companies, the relatively small number of privacy requests should not be a problem, the European Commissioner said on British radio, according to The Guardian. “This is relatively small compared to the copyright takedowns,” said Reding.

Google has always vehemently opposed the option for citizens to have search results removed. However, the company has not specified exactly what the objections are: it may fear that it spends a lot of time reviewing takedown requests, but the company may also fear for the integrity of its search results.

Google processed 23 million copyright takedown requests in the past month. That while Google recently indicated that it had received 12,000 requests to remove unwelcome information from people. Those requests came after the European Court of Justice ruled that Google must remove information from citizens from its search engine if there is a violation of privacy.

According to Reding, the judgment of the Court is a consequence of European privacy legislation. “We have a European law that applies in all member states,” The Guardian notes from her mouth. “The only ones refusing to follow European law in Europe are American companies. The European Court has reminded them that they must obey the law, just like everyone else.”

In the words of Reding it should be noted that there is also criticism of copyright takedowns: for example, entire websites are sometimes incorrectly removed from the search index because an entertainment company accidentally or not submits an entire website to Google.