Since May 91,000 Right-To-Be-Forgotten Takedown Requests

The Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) content removal requests in Europe keep coming in. It’s difficult right now to know whether they’re leveling off or continuing to increase. On the first day of availability Google’s RTBF online form, it received 12,000 submissions.

Sources familiar with the status of Google’s program told us that there had been 91,000 takedown requests across Europe, involving nearly 330,000 URLs since the court decision that formalized RTBF earlier this year. These figures would suggest that RTBF requests had slowed but it might also be explained by pent-up from “early adopters” now leveling off to a more stable, consistent pace.

Roughly 30 percent of RTBF requests are rejected and, apparently, Google seeks more information in approximately 15 percent of cases. More than half of takedown requests are approved according to our source.

The RTBF was announced by the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg in a case decided in May. Since that time both Google and individual country members have been scrambling to establish procedures to comply with the decision.

Last week Bing introduced its own RTBF site.