Google takes wider action on 'right to be forgotten'

The 'right to be forgotten' has been a point of contention between Google and EU privacy authorities

Tech giant Google says it will hide content removed under the "right to be forgotten" from all versions of the search engine when viewed from countries where removal was approved.

Under the "right to be forgotten" ruling, EU citizens may ask search engines to remove information about them.

Now, removed results will not appear on any version of Google.

EU privacy regulators previously asked the firm to do this.

Until now, search results removed under the "right to be forgotten" were only omitted from European versions of Google - such as google.co.uk or google.fr.

The French data protection authority had threatened the company with a fine if it did not remove the data from global sites - such as google.com - as well as European ones.

This filtering will be applied whenever a European IP address is detected - so users outside the country where the removal request is filed, and indeed all users outside Europe, will still see a set of unedited results.

The BBC understands that the change will be in effect from mid-February.