IMG 0116:9The request often reaches us like this: “take this article off the internet using the right to be forgotten.” The problem is in the wording itself. The right to be forgotten does not delete articles. It removes a specific link from the results of a specific search engine for a specific query — usually a person’s name. The page itself stays on its server, opens from a direct address, and can still be found by other search engines and in other countries. The difference between “remove a link” and “delete the information” is not a technicality. It is the foundation of realistic expectations for the entire process.
What the right actually removes, and what stays
A granted request does one precise thing: the link to a page stops appearing in search results for your name. Everything else is unchanged:
- the source page stays on its own website and opens from its direct URL;
- the material continues to be indexed by other search engines;
- in other countries and language versions of the results, the link may remain in place;
- for other queries — ones that are not your name — the page can still be found.
So the right to be forgotten is a targeted way to reduce visibility, not a way to erase material. For businesses and private individuals with international interests, that difference matters especially: decisions by banks, consulates and partners increasingly rest on what is visible in open search for a name — which means what counts is not an abstract “clean internet” but one concrete first page of results. This is also why de-indexing is almost never used on its own; we return to that below and in our piece on why an article can’t be removed “without a trace”.
IMG 0216:9Where the right to be forgotten came from
The modern form of this right grew out of a single dispute. In 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union decided the Google Spain case: a Spanish national asked that a link to an old newspaper notice about the forced sale of his property over a debt be taken out of search results — a story that was old and long settled, yet still surfaced first when his name was searched. The newspaper had broken no rules and refused to remove the article. The Court asked a different question: is a search engine, which only aggregates other people’s content, responsible for what it shows in response to a particular name?
The Court’s answer became the basis of the right to be forgotten: the operator of a search engine is an independent data controller and, on a person’s request, must stop returning links to information that has become inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive — even where the underlying publication is lawful. From that point on, the fate of a link in search and the fate of the page itself became two separate legal questions.
In the European Union, the principle was later codified as the “right to erasure” in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies alongside the regulation’s other grounds and its explicit exceptions — most importantly for freedom of expression and information.
Who can file, and on what grounds
Several stubborn misconceptions have gathered around this instrument, and because of them, formally sound requests are rejected at the very first stage. Let us take them in order.
- It is a right of a natural person. It can be used by an individual in respect of their own personal data, or by their legal representative. A company cannot file a request about itself or its staff — organisations work with other tools: defamation claims against the source, work on the publication itself and suppression within search results.
- Approval does not delete the page. Only the link in one search engine’s results, for one name, is removed. The page stays.
- A decision does not carry across borders. Each jurisdiction and each search engine considers a request separately. A positive decision by one engine in one country does not bind another engine in another country.
- “It’s unpleasant” is not a ground. You need formal reasons: inaccuracy, the information being out of date, or it being disproportionate. There are also firm exceptions where refusal is almost certain — information of genuine public interest, a current public office, an unspent conviction for a serious offence, active legal proceedings.
- There is no guarantee of an outcome. The decision is made by the search engine operator; on refusal, by the regulator or a court. A responsible approach assesses the likelihood by the type of ground, rather than promising a specific result.
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IMG 044:3How it works across jurisdictions
The right to be forgotten is not a single global standard but a set of national and regional rules. They differ in wording, in timelines and in the territorial reach of a decision — and that is critical for anyone with assets or business interests in more than one country.
- European Union. Under Article 17 of the GDPR, a person applies directly to the search engine operator with a list of specific URLs and grounds. Google and other operators run dedicated removal request forms for this. A refusal can be escalated to the national data protection authority or the courts.
- United Kingdom. After Brexit the UK applies its own version — the UK GDPR — with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the supervisory authority that handles complaints when an operator refuses.
- United States. There is no direct federal equivalent, largely because the First Amendment protects speech even when the information is unwelcome. Narrow mechanisms exist — for example California’s “online eraser” law for minors — but in practice reputation issues are more often addressed through DMCA notices for copyright and through defamation claims.
- UAE and other newer jurisdictions. A number of Gulf and Asian states have adopted their own personal data protection laws that partly echo the logic of the GDPR, including rights to rectification and erasure. Enforcement practice there is less developed, and realistic timelines differ noticeably from the European ones.
When the same information is indexed across several countries and language versions, you need to coordinate several legal tracks at once, not file one universal request.
How long it takes, and why the outcome can’t be guaranteed
Neither Google nor other major operators publish precise approval rates or commit to deadlines — and no lawyer or agency is entitled to promise otherwise. The only thing that can be assessed in advance is a qualitative likelihood based on the type of ground.
Technical errors and clear factual inaccuracies — a case of mistaken identity, outdated personal data — are usually reviewed faster and with a higher chance of a positive decision, because they do not require a balancing of interests. Cases where the information is formally accurate but disproportionate to the person’s present circumstances, or where several jurisdictions are involved, call for longer analysis and more often go through escalation to a regulator or a court. In practice a simple request on a clean ground takes weeks, while a complex multi-jurisdictional case takes months — a frame of reference, not a promised deadline.
IMG 0516:9How it differs from neighbouring tools
The right to be forgotten is often confused with tools that sit close to it in meaning, although they work in fundamentally different ways:
- A defamation claim. This compels a correction or a retraction of false statements at the source. Both an individual and a company can bring one. It applies when a publication is factually false, not simply out of date.
- Removal at the source / DMCA. This takes the material down from the platform itself. The ground is a breach of copyright, of the platform’s rules, or a court order. You need it when the material must be eliminated entirely, not merely demoted in search. We cover the limits of this in what gets removed and what has to be suppressed.
- Suppression within search results. This reduces the visibility of unwanted material at the top of the page without touching the link itself. It works when the material is lawful and not subject to removal — the subject of our guide to removing negative information online.
- Correcting a compliance database record. This concerns closed screening databases (World-Check and the like), not search results at all. We explain it in our piece on source-held content such as an encyclopaedia entry and in our World-Check article.
It is worth keeping in mind separately that removing a link from search does nothing to the content on the source site — an encyclopaedia entry, for instance. How that specific kind of material is handled, we set out in “Removing a Wikipedia article”.
What to do if the request is refused
A refusal by the operator is not the end but a signal to rethink the wording and the grounds: often the reason is that the ground was stated too broadly or does not fall within the list the law recognises. The next step is a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority (the ICO in the UK, the national data protection authority in the EU), and, for reputational harm caused by false statements, a defamation claim. If the link is formally lawful and fits none of the grounds, yet is reputationally damaging — for example, it presents real facts in an unflattering light without distortion — a legal instrument is powerless here by definition, and a different approach does the work: suppression within search results, combined with building up your own first page of results.
IMG 0621:9Frequently asked questions
Can a link be removed through the right to be forgotten with a guarantee?
No. The decision is made by the search engine operator; on refusal, by a regulator or a court. A realistic goal is a legally well-founded request with a high chance of approval, not a guaranteed result.
Does the page itself stay online?
Yes. What is removed is the link in one search engine’s results, for one name and one jurisdiction. The source page is not deleted and can still be found by other means or in other countries.
Can a company file this kind of request?
No, it is a personal right of an individual. For companies: a defamation claim against the source, work on the publication itself, and suppression within search results.
What to do next
If an out-of-date, inaccurate or disproportionate publication sits in the results for your name, the first step is not a request filed “on the off chance” but an audit: which links formally meet the grounds for de-indexing, and which need a different tool — a defamation claim, work on the source, or suppression. This article is informational and does not replace legal advice: the specific grounds and prospects depend on the details of your situation and the jurisdiction.
The Estena team runs these audits confidentially, measures your digital profile against what checks require and, where appropriate, fits de-indexing into the wider work on your search results. The easiest place to start is an express audit.
