Oops! Google accidentally reveals Right to Be Forgotten request details

The Guardian has discovered that Google mistakenly revealed more information about Right to Be Forgotten requests than it meant to. The search giant recently released a transparency report which provides scant detail about the number of requests it received in Europe and the sites they related to, but the new discovery goes further.

Critics said the report was not substantial enough, but it seems that a quick glance at the source code is all that's needed to reveal more. While before we knew little more than the fact that more than half of requests are declined, we now have a few extra snippets of information such as learning that over 95 percent of requests come from the general public rather than high-profile people.

When releasing its transparency report, Google chose to highlight some of the more sensational examples of requests it received (such as those relating to sexual content) but there have been calls for far more information to be made available -- as well as suggestions that the Right to Be Forgotten should be extended to the US. Some websites that have had their links removed from Google search results, including the BBC, have chosen to make the censorship public, but for many this is simply not enough -- facts and figures straight from the horse's mouth are preferred.

As revealed by The Guardian, the source code of an archived version of the transparency report goes into more detail than the published report. Since May of last year, Google has received 2,102 removal requests relating to public figures, and 1,025 relating to child protection (22 and 17 percent granted respectively). The figures also reveal how many requests relate to serious crime -- Italy tops the list here, with 11.9 percent of the country’s requests accounted for by crime-related content, compared to France where the figure is just 0.4 percent.

In response to the discovery, Google issued a statement:

We’ve always aimed to be as transparent as possible about our right to be forgotten decisions. The data the Guardian found in our Transparency Report’s source code does of course come from Google, but it was part of a test to figure out how we could best categorize requests. We discontinued that test in March because the data was not reliable enough for publication. We are however currently working on ways to improve our transparency reporting.

So what do we learn from the revelations? The fact that the vast majority of requests come from individuals shows that the Right to Be Forgotten is not being abused by companies to try to improve their online reputation, although at this stage it is not clear whether the individuals contacted Google directly, or used an intermediary.

Check out The Guardian’s report for all the facts and figures.

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