Some of those seeking to scrub their histories from the Web under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” rule are being economical with the truth when making their requests, Google said Thursday.
For example, it said, someone might want to remove an old article about crimes they committed when they were a teenager—without revealing they’d been convicted of similar crimes as an adult.
Google has criticized the ruling in the past but said it’s working to comply with it nonetheless. Its letter Thursday was in response to a questionnaire from regulators seeking more details about how it handles the requests.
Others besides Google have criticized the ruling. This week, a U.K. House of Lords subcommittee said the ruling was unworkable and misguided. It said it could be particularly damaging for smaller search engines that don’t have the resources to handle the requests.
Google provides a form online for the removal requests. So does Microsoft’s Bing.
“We continue to work out the details of the process we’ll use to evaluate the requests,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said.