DATA PROTECTION

Google Allows Link Removal Requests

In Europe.

After receiving thousands of requests to give people a way to remove links about themselves from search results, Google is providing Europeans with an online form where they formally ask for link removals. Chief Executive Larry Page said Google is “trying now to be more European, and think about [data collection] maybe more from a European context.” The European Court of Justice ruled this month that search engines are subject to data-protection rules and therefore must remove “outdated, wrong, or irrelevant” information from their indexes. About 40 percent of the requests for link removal come from Germany, with 13 percent from the U.K.