Google has published its annual report on  the URL delisting of requests by users.

In the average ( ie for all European countries) Google has refused to delist 65,4% requests .

The explanation Google appears to serve is that  it agrees with the national authorities that serious misbehaviour, criminal acts against the public order should remain accessible to a large public.

By way of example the most « successful » countries in the demands to delist have been:

• Tcheck Republic: 79% of the requests honoured, and 21% refused
• Denmark: 65,8% vs 34,2% not delisted
• Ireland: 63,2% vs 36,8% not delisted.

Google reiterates that “determining whether the content is in the public interest is complex, and may mean considering many different factors, including – but not limited to – whether the content relates to the applicant’s professional life, past crime, political office, public position or the content itself is authoritarian content, government or journalistic documents in kind”.

In the case of reports of “serious crimes” (such as rape, murder, robbery, violence, tax offences, fraud), for example, the Privacy Authorities tend to agree with Google whenever the search engine decides not to delete news from the Internet about serious crime incidents. There is no oblivion for serious crime.

In the relationship between privacy vs journalistic activities, identifying in the media criminal acts and in some cases of serious crimes,  the legal encroachment on journalistic activity, the right for information, gains to the detriment of the right to privacy of the persons concerned.