5 August 2015.
Google has said that it will not be complying with an order issued by the French data privacy watchdog, the CNIL.
Last month, the CNIL ordered Google to remove links from all of its domains under the “EU right to be forgotten” law.
The “right to be forgotten” law means that EU citizens can ask Google to remove links to webpages containing incorrect or outdated information about them if these results appear when the person's name is typed into the search engine.
Google has been complying with these requests, but has only been removing links concerning French individuals from its google.fr search results. The links still appear if you search for the person's name using any other Google domain, including google.com.
In mid-June, the French data watchdog ruled that this practice was unlawful and gave Google 15 days to remove inaccurate and outdated links from all of its Google domains.
Google's failure to comply with the request means that the search engine faces possible financial sanctions, although it is unclear how large any fine would be.
Google has asked the CNIL to withdraw its complaint, arguing that “no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access”. The CNIL has two months to decide whether to drop its request or pursue financial sanctions against the search engine.
