Google considers introducing censorship alert button in wake of EU privacy ruling
Google is considering the introduction of a censorship button to alert users to the omission of certain results, after being ordered by an EU court to remove links flagged up by people demanding information be erased.
Dubbed the ‘right to be forgotten’ the controversial ruling allows all EU citizens to demand the removal of ‘inadequate’ and ‘irrelevant‘ links to personal information although it stops short of taking the web pages offline entirely.
41,000 such requests have since been made with Google chief executive Larry page revealing that a third of these relate to a fraud or scam, a fifth to serious crime and 12 per cent involve child pornography.
Google has established an advisory panel, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, to decide on which requests fall within the bounds of public interest and should be removed.