LONDON, March 27 (UPI) -- British lawmakers say Google must introduce an algorithm to remove search links that breach privacy or face legislation forcing it to do so.
A committee of members of Parliament and peers was commissioned by the British government to look into privacy and free speech issues after a series of judicial gag orders in high-profile privacy cases were ignored online last year.
Celebrities, including English footballer Ryan Giggs and ex-Formula One racing boss Max Mosley, found gagging orders against newspapers were routinely flouted online, the BBC reported Tuesday.
In Giggs' case, the details of his gag-order were mentioned at least 75,000 times on Twitter, the committee said.
Online entities must be brought in line with offline media in such cases, it said.
"We recommend that, when granting an injunction, courts should be proactive in directing the claimant to serve notice on Internet content platforms such as Twitter and Facebook," it said.
The report was particularly critical of Google, which had refused Moseley's request to have material covered by a gag order removed from its searches.
"Where an individual has obtained a clear court order that certain material infringes their privacy and so should not be published, we do not find it acceptable that he or she should have to return to court repeatedly in order to remove the same material from Internet searches," the report said.
Google said it should not be required to proactively monitor the Internet.
"Requiring search engines to screen the content of their Web pages would be like asking phone companies to listen in on every call made across their networks for potentially suspicious activity," the U.S. company told the BBC.
