The online-magazine “7x7” has received a notification from Google company of deleting the article “The court hearings of „Anti-Jew“ case started” from the search engine results. It is a report on the trial of the author of antisemitic comment left on the BNK news agency website in 2010. Despite the fact that Google does not reveal the personal data of the applicant who asked to delete the search engine results, the editor office of “7x7” guess that was the character of the article himself who used the right to be forgotten, a resident of Syktyvkar Vadim Lyjurov.
In October, 2010, Komi Jewish national-cultural autonomy chairman Leonid Zilberg was interviewed by the journalists of Jurgan TV-channel for the “Vopros S Pristrastiem” [A question with enhanced interrogation] program. Later on the interview record was posted on BNK news agency website, where several dozens of people left their comments. The one standing out of the pack was an “Anti-Jew” anonym who actually called for a reprisal against the public person.
Upon the application of Leonid Zilberg, a criminal case under part 1 Article 282 of Russian Criminal Code (“Inciting hatred or hostility, or humiliation of human dignity”) has been initiated. “7x7” was covering the trial process where the anonymous commentator's name has been revealed. It turned out to be a 36-years-old employee of Komi Heating Company Vadim Lyjurov. He was sentenced to six months probation.
On April 2, 2016, the editors of the online-magazine “7x7” received a notification of excluding the article “The court hearings of „Anti-Jew“ case has started” from the Google search engine results.
Since 2016, the right to be forgotten has been in force in Russia. It obliges the search engines to delete the illegal or unreliable information, or hard facts about the events from three years ago about the users according to their appeal. It can be done without judicial decision. For non-compliance, the company will be fined in the amount of up to one million rubles. However, a search engine can refuse to delete the data. Then the user will have to challenge the decision in court.
As TV Rain (Dozhd) reported, Yandex [Russian search engine] had criticized these regulations even before the adoption of the law. The company said that from January to March they had received 3.600 applications from 1.348 users, and only a quarter of the search engine queries was deleted.
