What is delisting (the right to be forgotten in search)?

Making a search result disappear without erasing the page. The distinction is essential, and often misunderstood. Delisting does not destroy the content: it cuts the link between your name and a page in a search engine’s results. The page stays online, reachable by its direct address; it simply stops surfacing when someone types your identity into Google.

This right comes from the 2014 Google Spain ruling, which established the “right to be forgotten” on search engines in Europe. You exercise it via a dedicated form (Google and Bing both offer one), giving the offending URL and the reason. The engine weighs your request against the public’s interest in accessing the information, then accepts or refuses. If it refuses, the data protection authority can be asked to step in.

To be distinguished from the right to erasure, which targets the source: deleting the data at the data broker or the site hosting it. Delisting hides, erasure removes. Often you need both: request erasure at the source and delisting at the engine.

Where it plays out: the personal data removal category handles erasure at the source, the indispensable complement to delisting, and the book reduces what will, tomorrow, surface under your name.