Right to Be Forgotten: Getting Google to Delist

The right to be forgotten is the name most people give to Article 17 of the GDPR, the right to erasure, when they want a search engine to remove a result that appears when their name is typed in. For a person defamed online it looks like the obvious route: the page is false, the search result is what spreads it, and Google’s European operations are run from Dublin. The difficulty is that a search engine is not a court, and the Data Protection Commission has treated delisting on defamation grounds as difficult without a court finding. This guide explains what delisting does and does not do, what Article 17 gives you, why the Commission takes the position it does, and why a declaratory order under section 28 of the Defamation Act 2009 is the practical first step rather than the last.

1. What Delisting Does and Does Not Do

Delisting removes a result from searches on your name. It does not remove the page. The article, post or review stays on the publisher’s site, can be reached by anyone who has the direct link, and may still surface for searches on other words, or on other search engines that have not received a request. What it changes is discoverability: the prospective employer, the new customer or the neighbour who types your name no longer finds the page on the first screen. For many people that is most of the harm, which is why the request is worth making. But it is a step aimed at the search engine, not at the person who wrote the page, and it should be understood as one of three separate actions: delisting from search, removal from the platform or site, and the claim against the author. Each has its own target and its own rules.

2. The Right to Be Forgotten: GDPR Article 17

Article 17 of the GDPR gives a data subject the right to have personal data about them erased by the controller processing it. A search engine processes personal data when it indexes a page that names you and returns it for a search on your name, so a right to erasure request can be directed at the search engine and can seek delisting of particular results. Google, like Meta, TikTok and X, runs its European operations from Dublin, which means the request is handled by a Dublin-registered entity and any complaint about a refusal goes to the Data Protection Commission as the regulator. The request is made through the search engine’s own form or in writing, it identifies the URLs, and it states why the data should be erased. For an out-of-date or irrelevant page the request can stand on its own. For a page you say is false, it runs into the problem the next section describes.

3. The Data Protection Commission’s Position

The Data Protection Commission has treated delisting on defamation grounds as difficult without a court finding. The logic is simple. The request says the page is false; the publisher, if asked, says it is true; and the search engine is being asked to pick a side in a dispute it has no means of deciding. The GDPR is a data protection regime, not a defamation regime, and the question whether a statement is false and defamatory is one the Defamation Act gives to the courts. So a request that rests on the bare assertion that an allegation is untrue is likely to be refused, and a complaint to the Commission about that refusal is likely to meet the same answer. The way through is not to argue harder with the search engine but to bring it the thing it says it needs: a finding from a court that the statement was false and defamatory. The 2026 Act did not change this part of the picture, but it made the finding easier to get, as the Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026, explained sets out.

4. The Section 28 Declaratory Order: The Practical First Step

Section 28 of the Defamation Act 2009 allows the Circuit Court, on a summary application, to make a declaratory order that a statement was false and defamatory of the applicant. No damages are awarded on the application, and that is the point: the court is being asked to decide one question, falsity, in a short procedure, rather than to run a full action with discovery, witnesses and an assessment of damages under section 31. The order can be accompanied by a correction order under section 30, directing the publisher to publish a correction, and by a prohibition order under section 33 against further publication where the court is satisfied the statement is defamatory and the defendant has no defence reasonably likely to succeed. The application is made against the publisher of the statement, not against the search engine, so where the author is anonymous an identification order under section 45 may be needed first. The order that comes out is the court finding the Data Protection Commission’s position calls for, and it is the document that turns the Article 17 request from an assertion into a record. A website owner or author who receives such an application gets the same analysis from the other side; we never act for both sides of the same dispute.

5. The Delisting Request Itself

With the order in hand the request is a short document. It lists every URL to be delisted, exactly as it appears in the address bar, including any variants that return the same page. It names the search terms concerned, which for a name search means your name and the obvious variations. It attaches the section 28 order and, where one was made, the correction order. And it explains why the result is inaccurate: the statement the page contains has been declared by a court to be false and defamatory, so the personal data the search result returns about you is inaccurate data and should be erased from name searches. Keep a copy of the request and the reference number, record the date, and check the results after the search engine responds, because a request that covers one URL and misses a mirror of the same article leaves the harm in place. The same request, with the same order attached, goes to any other search engine that returns the page.

6. The Other Removals: Platform, Digital Services Act and Publisher

Delisting deals with the result; the page needs its own action. Where the page is a social media post, a review or a video, report it to the platform first. The Digital Services Act, in force since 17 February 2024, requires platforms to run notice-and-action systems, and Coimisiún na Meán is Ireland’s Digital Services Coordinator and enforces the Online Safety Code for video-sharing platforms, so the report is a right the platform must process. Keep the reference number. Where the page is on a website the author controls, the route is the solicitor’s letter seeking removal, an undertaking not to repeat, and an apology under section 24, which is not an admission of liability by the person giving it. The letter, the platform notice and the orders that follow a refusal are described on our page on takedown and removal: the solicitor’s letter. A section 28 order obtained for the delisting request is also the strongest possible enclosure to a removal letter, since it leaves the publisher arguing with a court rather than with you.

7. The Deadline Runs Throughout

None of these steps pauses the limitation period. Section 38 gives one year from the date of first publication, extendable by the court to a maximum of two years only where the interests of justice require it, which the courts apply strictly, and section 11 provides that online republication by the same publisher does not restart time. A platform report does not halt the clock. A delisting request does not halt it, because the only suspension in the Act is for a specified ADR procedure under Part 4B, a Press Council complaint or a broadcast right of reply, and an Article 17 request is neither. The section 28 application is itself a defamation proceeding and must be brought inside the period. The order of operations therefore matters: capture the page with the URL and date, report to the platform, send the letter, and issue the section 28 application in time, with the delisting request following the order rather than preceding it.

8. Sequencing It

Put together, the sequence for a false page that ranks for your name is this. Capture everything with the URL and date visible. Report the page to the platform and keep the reference. Send the solicitor’s letter to the publisher seeking removal and an apology. If refused, apply to the Circuit Court under section 28 for a declaratory order, with a correction order and a prohibition order where they fit, and under section 45 first if the author is anonymous. Send the Article 17 request to each search engine with the order attached. Then decide whether a claim for damages under section 31 is worth pursuing against the author, which is a separate question with its own costs. The full court process is in how to sue for defamation in Ireland, step by step, and the Defamation Claim Checker will tell you, from the words and the facts, whether section 28 is realistically available on yours.