French privacy agency orders Google to remove global links

PARIS — France’s data privacy agency is ordering Google to remove search results worldwide upon request, saying the “right to be forgotten” for European citizens applies globally.

The order Friday from CNIL comes more than a year after Europe’s highest court ruled that people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online.

So far, Google says it has received more than 268,000 requests to remove URLS after the May 2014 decision, but switching to a non-European Google domain can pull up deleted links.

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of CNIL, said the order to remove search results globally “is only telling international companies that operate in Europe that they must conform to European law.”

In a statement, Google said it was complying with the ruling’s focus on European users