On February 6, 2015, the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten released its report.  Convened to advise Google on how to implement the European Court of Justice’s right to be forgotten decision from May 2014, the Council’s independent members recommended that search engines maintain limited transparency of their delisting decisions and restrict deletions to European search engines.

The European Court of Justice’s recent decision granting EU citizens a right to be forgotten by search engines is a major blow to free expression on the Internet.  Reaction from media outlets like the New York Times and the Financial Times has been harshly critical and rightly so.   The key thing for Internet users and for public policymakers in Europe is to understand how this ruling might reduce the amount of accurate information available on the Internet.

District Court Upholds FTC Data Security Authority