Am I being deleted by Google against my will?
by Martin Belam, September 23, 2014 UPDATED: Quartz say no – “Google is trolling the EU with passive-aggressive disclaimers on search results”
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I noticed by chance when Googling looking for an old friend that some of the search results for their name had been removed due to the “right to be forgotten” legislation. I understand why that my be. They were once the victim of a crime, and results relating to that used to dominate the results for their name.
I tweeted about it, and then former Times digital head-honcho Tom Whitwell pointed out that I too have missing results when you search for my name.
I have no idea why.
Actually, the more we dug in, it looks like Google are now displaying that message against a lot of searches using real names. I get it on results for my name, so does Tom Whitwell. But former colleague James Ball and current colleague Rob Manuel don’t. Sophie Gadd does. David Cameron and Nigel Farage don’t.
Which I think means I’ve got no way of telling whether my internet history is being deleted by Google without my permission, or not.
Creepy, much?
by Martin Belam, September 23, 2014 I do live blogging, news stories and quizzes at the Guardian, and help cover Eurovision and Doctor Who for them too. As a journalist and designer I’ve spent over twenty years building digital products for the likes of Sony, the Guardian, the BBC, the Natural History Museum, Arts Council England and Reach (formerly Trinity Mirror). You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. Sign up to get my blog posts sent to you via email.