More than 70,000 people have already asked Google to delete links about them under Europe's "right to be forgotten" ruling, with some of the world biggest news sites the first to be hit.
The search engine has restricted access to a BBC blog posting and several British newspaper stories under a legal ruling granting people a right to be "forgotten" in search engines, according to reports on Thursday.Google said it had received 70,000 requests since it put a form online on May 30 as a result of the ruling by the European Court of Justice.
The court said that individuals have the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches in certain circumstances, such as if the data is outdated or inaccurate.
But BBC economics editor Robert Peston complained that Google had "killed this example of my journalism" after being informed that a 2007 posting about former Merrill Lynch chairman Stan O'Neal had been removed from certain searches in Europe.
The Guardian newspaper also said it had been notified that six links to its stories had been removed from search results, three of them about a 2010 controversy involving a now-retired Scottish Premier League referee.
The newspaper said Google gave it no reason for removing the link or a chance to appeal.
Mail Online, the world's biggest news site, said it had received notification that links to a story about the same Scottish referee, Dougie McDonald, had been removed from certain searches.
Other stories restricted include one about a couple caught having sex on a train, and another about a Muslim man who accused the airline Cathay Pacific of refusing to employ him because of his name.
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
