Google Needs Help with 'Right To Be Forgotten' Requests

Jul 12, 2014 11:43 AM EDT | Jordan Ecarma

Google is calling for reinforcements as it attempts to give people their "right to be forgotten" in Europe.

Following a European court ruling, the search giant is working to take down thousands of search results and has tapped a panel of experts for advisement, NBC News reported.

"It's a huge task as we've had over 70,000 take-down requests covering 250,000 webpages since May," Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in an op-ed that was published Friday in several European newspapers.

As Google works to take down unwanted links that include criminal convictions, a 10-person advisory council will garner feedback from across Europe by holding public meetings.

The search giant has always purported to provide accurate, pure search results and has only taken down listings when they contain information that is illegal, including defamation, child pornography and malware.

But the European ruling found that people can request the removal of search results they say are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive."

In the op-ed, Drummond noted that Google disagreed with the ruling but respects the court's decision and is working to take down the results.

"The examples we've seen so far highlight the difficult value judgments search engines and European society now face," he wrote, "former politicians wanting posts removed that criticize their policies in office; serious, violent criminals asking for articles about their crimes to be deleted; bad reviews for professionals like architects and teachers; comments that people have written themselves (and now regret). In each case, someone wants the information hidden, while others might argue it should be out in the open."

Google began working to fulfill the removal requests last month. The ruling only applies in Europe, so U.S. search results won't be affected.

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