It doesn’t seem like the whole mess that is the “right to be forgotten” is going to be thoroughly sorted out anytime soon, as regulators in Europe are now taking issue with Google’s implementation of the rules it is being forced to adopt.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the EU privacy officials have called a meeting for next Thursday in Brussels with the major search engines to discuss things further. According to the report, Microsoft has confirmed that it will attend, while Google and Yahoo have said they’ll cooperate with officials, but haven’t confirmed attendance for the specific meeting.
Regulators in Germany, it says, are concerned that Google isn’t removing search results from Google.com in the same way that it is with its EU-specific sites. Likewise, the director of a French watchdog says this puts the effectiveness of the whole thing into question.
You don’t say.
Other areas of concern include: cases that end up having the opposite effect of the right to be forgotten, as stories are written about their very involvement with this whole larger story; and the nature in which Google is notifying publishers when they’re content is being hidden in search results.
It will be surprising if Google doesn’t end up attending the meeting, as it is obviously effected greatly by this whole thing, and the whole world is watching. It’s no surprise that Microsoft has confirmed its attendance, as it has been talking about implementing its version of the “right to be forgotten” feature on Bing in recent weeks, but has admitted it’s been a difficult process. In fact, some have criticized Google for complying so quickly while Bing is taking its time. Yahoo is said to be readying its own version as well, but we haven’t heard much from them on the matter.
It will be interesting to see what kind of progress is made next week, if any.
Image via Google
