Google rejects French order on world ‘right to be forgotten’

Google office in Mountain View, California. (Shutterstock/Turtix)

PARIS – Google is rejecting an order by the French data privacy agency to remove search results worldwide upon request, saying European law allowing the ‘right to be forgotten’ doesn’t apply globally.

In a statement posted late Thursday, Google said bowing to CNIL’s request would force it also to agree to similar requests worldwide from any government that doesn’t agree with how the company posts content. “The Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place,” the company wrote on its Europe policy blog.

Europe’s highest court ruled in May 2014 that people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online.

Google said it has received more than a quarter-million requests. In the statement, Google said it had asked CNIL to withdraw the order.