It was last year when Google started removing certain pages from its search results following the ruling that came from the European Union's highest court, which gave residents the right to ask the company to perform such action.
Dubbed the "right to be forgotten," the ruling allows individuals to send over their requests for the removal of pages that bear information that could be prejudicial to them, or pages that they simply wish to be forgotten after a certain period.
Google protested against the ruling, arguing that the action would need "difficult value judgments" and that it could go against the public interest.
The company also made mention of key individuals who have the potential to make the requests. These include former politicians who want certain posts that criticize their office policies to be removed; violent criminals who want articles that detail their crime to be deleted; and professionals such as teachers and architects who don't want to have their bad reviews seen over the Internet.
While Google disclosed in its original report just how many of these requests it had received and granted, the company did not describe in detail the nature of the requests.
However, newly leaked data show that out of all the requests sent to Google, majority came from everyday citizens and only 5 percent came from criminals, politicians and high-profile public personalities.
Based on data published by The Guardian, Google has received almost 220,000 requests as of March. More than 95 percent of these requests were presented by everyday folks, all of them wanting links to their private and personal information to be removed by Google.
Data also showed that roughly half of all requests had been approved.
These records were discovered by The Guardian in the source code from archived copies of Google's transparency report.
Some of the requests included a woman who wanted Google to remove her address, a woman who didn't want to see her name appearing in news events that happened when her husband died, and an individual who was diagnosed as HIV positive a decade ago.
"The data the Guardian found in our Transparency Reports source code does of course come from Google, but it was part of a test to figure out how we could best categorize requests," said a spokesperson for Google. He added that the test "was discontinued in March because the data was not reliable enough for publication" although the company aims to be as transparent as possible and is working to improve the way it delivers its transparency report.
Photo: Meneame Comunicacions, SL | Flickr
