Swiss account for over 14,000 Google ‘right to be forgotten’ requests

Google accepted to delist 44% of Swiss URLs concerned Keystone

Since May 2014, Google has received 14,607 Swiss requests to be delisted from its search engine results that concern 49,700 URLs.  

Following a ruling of the Court of Justice of The European Union in May 2014, individuals have the right ask search engines like Google to remove results for searches based on their name. Search engines have to comply if the URLs are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive,” as well as consider other factors like the public profile of the individual. Since 2014, Switzerland has been responsible for 2.2% of the over 650,000 requests to GoogleExternal link to be delisted. 

Google has not approved every Swiss request to be forgotten though: 44% of URLs concerned were delisted. The bulk of the requests (88.8%) came from private individuals. Of the rest, 38.3% involved minors, 29.2% companies, 18.2% government officials and 11.5% non-governmental public figures. 

Of the URLs requested for delisting and actually delisted by Google, the website Moneyhouse.ch – that provides financial data on individuals and firms – heads the Swiss list. Social media platforms Facebook and Twitter clinched second and third place respectively. Media websites Blick (fourth place) and 20min (fifth place) completed the top five.