Google is receiving a deluge of requests from people hoping to delete individual search results, as Europeans exercise their newly-won “right to be forgotten.”
Google said Tuesday it had received 41,000 requests from people in the first four days after posting a request page late last week, the Wall Street Journal reports, amounting to more than 10,000 requests per day, or roughly 7 each minute.
The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice ruled last month that search engines must accept requests to remove links from individual name searches. Critics of the court’s ruling say it could limit free speech and allow for a whitewashing of the internet.
The sheer volume of requests has led Google to consider hire new staffers or re-dedicating staffers to deal with submissions.
[WSJ]
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington
- Introducing the 2025 Closers
- Colman Domingo Leads With Radical Love
- Why, Exactly, Is Alcohol So Bad for You?
- The Motivational Trick That Makes You Exercise Harder
- 11 New Books to Read in February
- How to Get Better at Doing Things Alone
- Column: Trump’s Trans Military Ban Betrays Our Troops
Contact us at letters@time.com