[PCWorld] No Europe, Google does not have to delete all your personal data

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A Google representative confirmed on Thursday that the so-called European right to be forgotten will not apply to the Google.com domain, nor for that matter to country-specific Google domains outside of Europe.This means that, in practice, query results the company stops showing on its European domains will still turn up on its other sites, including its main one. […]

Joe McNamee, from the European Digital Rights group, EDRi, concurred. “There is no real right to be forgotten,” he said at the forum. “The information is still indexed, it’s just that a search involving a person’s name will not call it up. Users can still find the information using other search terms.” He added that he did not believe the ruling would have a huge practical impact. Google has so-far received 41,000 requests to remove links to information, but McNamee pointed out that this is not a huge number compared with the EU’s 500 million citizens. However, he said that the principle of a private company making decisions about the balance between the right to privacy and public interest or freedom of expression, was completely wrong. “No private company should be making these decisions,” he said. Jimenez said that “the vast majority of cases” have to do with newspapers and legal cases, so it is not easy. […]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2360540/no-europe-google-does-not-have-to-delete-all-your-personal-data.html