After
widespread criticism, Google has begun reinstating some links it had earlier
removed under the controversial "right to be forgotten" ruling.
Articles
posted online by the Guardian newspaper were removed earlier this week, but
have now returned fully to the search engine.
Google
has defended its actions, saying that it was a "difficult" process.
"We
are learning as we go," Peter Barron, head of communications for Google in
Europe, told the BBC.
Speaking
to Radio 4's Today programme, he dismissed claims made on Thursday that the
company was simply letting all requests through in an attempt to show its
disapproval at the ruling.
"Absolutely
not," he said. "We are
aiming to deal with it as responsibly as
possible.
"The
European Court of Justice [ECJ] ruling was not something that we welcomed, that
we wanted - but it is now the law in Europe and we are obliged to comply with
that law."
He
said Google had to balance the need for transparency with the need to protect
people's identity.
'Memory hole'
Mr
Barron argued that the search giant was doing its best to comply with the ECJ's
ruling, which stated that links to web pages can be removed from search engine
if they are deemed to be "outdated, irrelevant or no longer
relevant".
The
ruling has come under particular scrutiny after BBC economics editor Robert
Peston was notified that a blog post he had written in 2007 would be removed
from appearing when a specific search was carried out on Google.
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Rory
Cellan-Jones reports: ''The right to be forgotten imposed on Google... is now
swinging into action''
The
identity of the person who made the request is not yet known, although Google
has confirmed it is not the subject of the article, former Merrill Lynch boss
Stan O'Neal.
Instead,
the request relates to the reader comments that appear underneath the story.
Elsewhere,
the Guardian's special projects editor James Ball wrote that six of the
newspaper's articles had "fallen down the memory hole".
Back
in the headlines
A
source has confirmed to the BBC that the Guardian articles have now been
re-indexed for all relevant search terms.
Mr
Ball joined those saying that Google's actions may have been
"tactical".
"There
are very few news organisations in the world who are happy to hear their output
is being stifled," he said.
"A
few automated messages later, the story is back in the headlines - and Google
is likely to be happy about that."
His
thoughts echoed those of Ryan Heath, spokesman for the European Commission's
vice-president, who described the decision to remove a link to Peston's blog as
"not a good judgement".
"Google
clearly has a strong interest in making sure that they're able to work with
whatever the legal requirements are, so they position themselves in a
particular way over that," he said.
"It
doesn't come cheap to deal with all of these requests, so they need to find
some way to come up with dealing with them."
He
added that the ruling should not allow people to "Photoshop their
lives".
BBC
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