Google has been facing a long tussle with France regulators regarding the Right to be Forgotten. In simple words Right to be Forgotten is the right of an individual to request and make Google remove certain data about him/her or an organization from its search results. For example, a person has been charged with a legal case. Several news have been given on different websites. Later on, the charge was proved to be false but the news will still remain on Google search results. Even though the person is innocent, but the news will be like a forever curse for him. So if he asks Google to remove those results from Google’s search results, then Google will have to remove those results. Now France wants Google to apply he Right to be Forgotten facility on a global scale. But Google has a different view. There are certain things which may be legal to some countries but illegal to others. So the Right to be forgotten can never be applied on a universal basis. Hence, on France’s regulatory rules, Google agreed on the Right to be forgotten act but the company also told that the facility will be limited within that particular country in which the rule is valid.
But the French regulatory authority was not convinced with this limited extension. They want extension for not only other countries but also for other Google sites.But Google did not agree. Hence now the French regulatory authority not only charging Google a hefty fine but also planning to take legal actions on a wider level. This might help people to ask Google to remove search results with which they are not comfortable .
France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés, known as CNIL, said in June that Google must abide by this rule including those in countries with stronger protections around freedom of speech. CNIL even gave Google deadline of 15 days to begin removing search results from all of its domain names across all countries. Since Google has not yet done it, the company has been charged with a fine of €150,000 . “We’ve worked hard to implement the right to be forgotten ruling thoughtfully and comprehensively in Europe, and we’ll continue to do so,” a Google spokesperson told “But as a matter of principle, we respectfully disagree with the idea that a single national data protection authority should determine which webpages people in other countries can access via search engines.”
