The web giant agreed to requests from individuals that true stories about them be deleted from results because they are “no longer relevant”. Articles for which search results have been removed include one about a student convicted of drink-driving and banned from driving for a year after he returned to his university halls of residence and drove his £4,000 car around the grounds before crashing. A police helicopter, six security guards and two police patrol cars were called to the incident in 2008. The European Court of Justice ruled in May that Google must remove links to any content that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” or face a fine. The content itself, in this case a story on the Telegraph’s website, is not deleted but Google will not list it in search results.
Another new example, from 2001, involved a sales director who “terrorised” a shopkeeper and his wife while stealing beer and damaging a security camera in an incident before a football game. The shopkeeper subsequently needed four stitches.