In the aftermath of the European Court of Justice's (ECJ) ruling that an individual could ask "relevant and outdated" information to be removed from the search results, technology giant, Google, has been receiving a number of takedown requests from various people.

A plastic surgeon had requested that past accusations of medical malpractice be removed from the search results.

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A former politician running for re-election asked Google to remove links containing stories about his negative past behavior during his office.

A convicted felon requested links pertaining to his conviction of possession of child abuse images to be removed.

These all came about after the ECJ had ruled in favor of Spanish national, Mario Costeja Gonzalez, who complained that a search of his name in Google resulted in links to newspaper notices of an auction of his repossessed home infringed on his privacy.

According to the BBC, the ECJ has received a request from Spain's highest court, the Audencia Nacional, for a decision on whether European citizens can demand for the deletion of certain personal information in Google's search engine.

The question on whether the ECJ holds the proper jurisdiction over this case should be considered since Google is based in the U.S.

Another issue that BBC pointed out is the question of how the ECJs ruling can be used by the data subject (individual) to ask the data controller - Google, in this case -  to "forget" certain data about them?

"If it is found, following a request by the data subject, that the inclusion of those links in the list is, at this point in time, incompatible with the directive, the links and information in the list of results must be erased," according to the ECJ.

Google has yet to comment on these takedown requests nor has it released any figures on such requests. 

On the ECJs ruling, Google had said in a statement that the ruling is disappointing not only for Google but for online publishers and search engines in general. Google said it will have to first analyse the implications of the ECJ ruling.

TagsPrivacy, Europe, Spain, U.S., America, technology