It was in May 2014 that an EU ruling ruled that European citizens have the "right to be forgotten" online.

The judgment involved a new major responsibility for search services and Google, which is the dominant search service in Europe, presented a form that made it possible to apply for links to be removed from the search engine.

Since the EU ruling, Google has reviewed over 80,000 URLs reported by Swedes, and removed 50 percent of them, according to statistics from Google. Most people who request removal of URLs are private individuals.

Want to delete address information

In order for Google search results to be removed, the information must be "inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive." According to Google, the most common reasons for search hits being removed are that the content is not in the public interest, that the information is sensitive, that the content is about a minor, or that it is about served sentences, acquittal or acquittal.

When Google lists which ten domains you have removed the most URLs from, at the request of Swedes, you will find several of the major directory services where you can search for, among others, private persons' phone numbers and addresses: Merinfo.se, Ratsit.se, Eniro.se, Find .se, Mrkoll.se.

Here are the ten domains that Google has removed the most searches for in Google Search since 2014 (at the request of Swedes). Photo: SVT Design

Also featured at the top are Facebook.com and Stureplan.se - a site that monitored the nightlife at Stureplan and contained obscure images and blogs but was closed down in 2017.

Flashback stands out

One domain that stands out on the list is Flashback.org. Since 2014, the Swedes have requested that more than 10,000 URLs for the forum be removed. In almost every fifth case, Google has removed the search results. According to Google, it improved its coding process in 2015, and since 2016, the company says it has canceled 27 percent of requests for Flashback addresses.

"Common reasons why Google did not remove Flashback pages in Sweden were that they contained information related to criminal activity or professional practice, or that requests did not contain enough information to allow Google to make an assessment," writes Joakim Larsson, Google Sweden's communications manager , to SVT News.

A Swedish has sued Google for refusing the search service to remove search hits to the forum. The links led to a thread that was about a project to which the man had connections. But he lost both in the district court and the court of law when it was judged that his "role in public life" meant that there was a general interest in taking part in the discussion on the forum.