In 2014, a European court decision, Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja González, granted individuals the ability to request that search engines “de-index” content about them under the so-called “Right To Be Forgotten” doctrine. We believe that denying people access to relevant and neutral information is antagonistic to the values of the Wikimedia movement; please see our August 2014 blog post for more on our views. Despite the fact that the projects are not search engines, we occasionally receive direct requests to remove content from Wikimedia projects under the Right To Be Forgotten.[1]
JAN – JUN 2016
Total number of RTBF requests
5
JAN – JUN 2016
Number of requests granted
0
↑Please note that this information only reflects requests made directly to us. Wikimedia project pages continue to disappear from search engine results without any notice, much less, request to us. We have a dedicated page where we post the notices about attempts to remove links to Wikimedia projects that we have received from the search engines who provide such notices as part of their own commitments to transparency. But we suspect that many search engines are not even giving notice, which we find contrary to core principles of free expression, due process, and transparency.
