A controversial European court ruling recently determined that people had the “right to be forgotten” and ordered search engines like Google to purge unflattering web links from their search history, but does the internet really have a delete button? A new website called “Hidden From Google” has been banking links removed since the European Union Court of Justice’s ruling.
“The purpose of this site is to list all links which are being censored by search engines due to the recent ruling of “Right to be forgotten” in the EU, reads the website’s informational page. “This list is a way of archiving the actions of censorship on the Internet. It is up to the reader to decide whether our liberties are being upheld or violated by the recent rulings by the EU.”
One of the biggest concerns about the right to be forgotten ruling has been its affect on news coverage. Several European media outlets have been asked to remove links to news stories, which motivated New Jersey-based web developer Afaq Tariq to create “Hidden From Google.”
So far the website doesn’t have that many links listed, but we expect it grow with time. Not necessarily looking to shame individuals, Tariq provided visitors with the following disclaimer:
The Censored Search Term(s) field in the list above does not denote the individual who requested the removal of the link by Google. It only lists terms which have, at a given time, been censored on a Google EU domain.
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