Privacy wars: EU’s effort to rein in Google backfires

Google is a top target for European regulators and privacy watchdogs, who openly fear and distrust its dominance. The US tech giant’s search engine alone gobbles up roughly 90% of the European market.

But a landmark court ruling intended to rein in Google has instead put it at the forefront of Europe’s enforcement of internet privacy. After Europe’s highest court ruled in May 2014 that people with connections to the continent could ask search engines such as Google and Microsoft’s Bing to remove links about themselves from online search results, the companies were handed the power to decide which of these requests were legitimate.

In the almost two years since Europeans gained the “right to be forgotten” on the internet, Google has passed judgment in more than 418,000 such cases, according to the company’s records. It has approved fewer than half of those requests. People requesting the removal of links must submit an online form with an official ID.

Despite a history of animosity towards the company, regulators have handed over review powers to Google with few complaints, saying they are merely following Europe’s data protection rules.

Other search companies, including Microsoft, have been given the same authority, though their number of judgments pale by comparison.

Some groups and privacy experts have sounded alarm bells over a for-profit company — that relies on people’s digital lives to make billions of dollars — playing such a central role in protecting individuals’ data, and doing so in such a secretive manner.

Google has not responded to requests, including an open letter last year from primarily European and US academics, to explain how its review process works. And since 2014, the company has declined to give any journalists access to its team of fewer than 50 employees — mostly lawyers and para-legals based at its Dublin offices — who review the demands. Google also did not respond to questions for this article. “If Europe really wanted to regain control over personal data, giving Google this type of power is an odd outcome,” said Luciano Floridi, a University of Oxford professor, who previously sat on an council to help Google handle its role as a de facto privacy regulator.