Facebook Links Most Removed from Google Searches

145,000 people requested to be erased from Google records since the “right to be forgotten” process began May 29, according to Google`s latest Transparency report.

After the Court of Justice of the European Union decided that search engines give individuals the right to delete any personal data which is not of public interest, Google was swamped with some 1000 demands a day, mostly from Europeans.

So far, France has seen the most activity, with 28,898 removal requests. Germany takes second place with 24,979 requests, followed by the UK with 18,304, Spain with 13,316, and Italy with 11,379.

The removal requests covered more than 497,000 Web links and Google said it approved 42% of them. From a list of impacted sites, Facebook had the most links erased (3353), followed by Youtube (2397) and social network Badoo (2206).

The company also gave examples of the type of requests it has received.

“To give you an idea of the range of requests we`ve received and the kinds of decisions we`ve had to make, we`ve included some examples of real requests we`ve received from individuals. These are anonymized so that they don`t include information that would identify individuals,” Google wrote.

“A public official asked us to remove a link to a student organization`s petition demanding his removal. We did not remove the page from search results,” one example read.