The newly ruled law allows for individuals to directly request to Google to take undesirable information down from the internet. The resolve comes to the appreciation of many and the dismay of several companies prominent on Google. Although the changes are large, here are a few things we can expect from the freshly implemented “Right to be Forgotten.”

• It won’t be complicated to implement, but it will be difficult to convince everyone to comply by the new law
• The definition of private information available on public domains will be changed

Within the first few days of being implemented, the new law has generated hundreds of requests from individuals seeking to have information removed from Google. However, companies that withhold such personal information expected a great ordeal. Yet, the requests will be just as easy and comparable to copyright infringement requests sent to Google. There is a precedent to the type of claims that this new law will generate and thus it won’t prove an impossible task to achieve.

However, what has proved most difficult has been making companies—particularly a few American companies— comply. However, as Viviane Reding— EU Justice Commissioner— stated on her Facebook: “No matter where the physical server of a company processing data is located, non-European companies, when offering services to European consumers, must apply European rules.”

Companies that have a difficult time complying are under the belief that the new ruling will increase censorship on the internet. What we consider to be private information and what we accept to be on the public domain will have to be assessed differently. However, Google will have a lot of say in the way it monitors the individual requests to take down personal information.

This is so due to the loophole the law provides since it does not authorize punishing companies such as Google if they do not take information down. In essence that means that Google has the ability to determine if each request to be Forgotten falls under what the the rulings meant by “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” information.

Although the new ruling is very similar to the copyright requests filed by individuals, it is delving into unchartered territory. Ultimately, it will set the wheels of motion towards creating new ways to police information on websites such as google that provide a nuanced definition of what is considered private and public information.

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