A top EU court has just ruled that Google must remove listing of ordinary people if the listings are irrelevant and outdated. The right to be forgotten has come about after a Spanish man complained that a 16 year old auction notice of his repossessed home infringed his privacy. So has reputation management just got easier?
Yes – providing you are not in public life. Google is obviously disappointed by the ruling because it now means they have to censor their listings to take into account the needs of ordinary people. This is being termed, ‘the right to be forgotten’.
This ruling does not require the originating websites to remove material. EU says, for that information to be confined to history – or at least, a history only discoverable by the very dedicated. The information will still be online, just not indexed by the search engine. It’s important to point out that when you view a Google search engine results page, you are in fact just reading a snapshot version of what particular web pages contained when Googlebot lasted visited. This includes the title of the page, along with a short description and in some cases images. If you click a particular listing, Google transfers you to the host website.
This has obvious benefits for and inbound marketing agency in Birmingham and for those looking to control their reputation or online brand. If there are listings that are no longer relevant or outdated, it means that a request can be made to Google (and other search engines) for that information to be removed.
If you want to know what is being said about you on social networks, blogs, webpages etc. Then why not try mention, a free app that allows you to monitor specific phrases and terms.
Read more about right to be forgotten here
