Large companies need to obey, France's privacy regulator explains

May 19, 2014 13:13 GMT  ·  By
Microsoft is one of the companies that need to honor the right to be forgotten in Europe
   Microsoft is one of the companies that need to honor the right to be forgotten in Europe

The European Union last week approved a new regulation that allows users to ask large companies, including Google and Microsoft, to remove their online data and thus be “forgotten” and, according to the French privacy watchdog, plenty of citizens have already contacted the two tech giants in this regard.

According to a report by Bloomberg, France’s CNIL and Europe’s other privacy bodies will set up a meeting in June to discuss on the ways to enforce the ruling and thus force the companies to respect users' choices.

“We’ve already received complaints citing the court decision,” CNIL's President Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin was quoted as saying. “The idea that companies like Google are too powerful to respect European rules -- we’ve proven that idea wrong. It’s prompting citizen reactions.”

Microsoft is one of the companies that need to comply with the requirements and have to honor the “right to be forgotten,” as the EU officials call it.

It appears that CNIL is also discussing with the French government a fine increase for privacy violations from €150,000 ($206,000) to €300,000, but no decision has been made yet.

Microsoft hasn't yet issued a statement on this, but we've reached out to Redmond for some official comments, so we'll update the article when and if we get an answer.