European regulators are once again pursuing the stipulation to have the "right to be forgotten" ruling be applied not only to European based domains like Google.co.uk but also on the main site itself, Google.com.

The high courts in Europe have come to a decision that search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing strongly control the data that proliferate the Internet, hence they must be subject to data protection rulings.

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Regulators have been very protective of their citizens' privacy and wanted outdated and irrelevant information tagged to a private individual's name be de-listed from the site. In the ruling that passed for Google.co.uk approximately 6 months ago, only 41 percent of the total 600,000 links request was approved by Google for de-listing.

Google's Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, argues that the stipulation should cover only sub-domains like ".co.uk."

"A very small percentage, less than 5%, of European traffic goes to .com so 95% or more are to these sites," Schmidt further claims.

The search engine magnate is hesitant about the de-listing request because of the complicated nature that search engines have. Since the passed law is directed to European users, he asserts that the de-listing implementation be done also on the ".co.uk" site only.  

The WP29 (Article 29 Working Party), mainly composed of regulators for data protection, is said to have come up with adopted rules and guidelines regarding the "right to be forgotten" ruling.

The guidelines have not yet been published but are due to come out towards the end of the week. According to the press release made by WP29, the privacy law cannot be effectively implemented unless .com domains becomes inclusive of the ruling and not just European domain.

To date, a google spokesperson confrmed that the "right to be forgotten" guidelines have not yet reached their office but are set to study the published ruling carefully before making any further statements.

TagsRight to Be Forgotten, Google.com, Google.co.uk, search engine delisting, EU