State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament Kremlin, has approved a law that gives internet users the right to request internet search engines to remove the personal information of users from their search results, provided that the information is incorrect, illegal or outdated. This is also in line with European Union rules on the “right to be forgotten”.
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The regulation, which will come into force from January 2016, has been criticized by Russian web companies who are concerned about limiting access to public information.
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The request for removal can be made by users even without a court order and web companies will have 10 days to comply with it. If they refuse, the complainant may take them to court. If the court holds the data questioned by plaintiff to be actually false or outdated, the search engine can be fined up to 100,000 rubles (currently under $2,000).
