France just made a serious (and scary) bid to put itself in charge of internet censorship, globally

France's data protection agency, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), has ruled that Google must apply "right to be forgotten" requests worldwide, and not just on the French or European versions of its search results.

The ruling appears to mean that if a French person requests that Google take down links to some old, negative (but truthful) information about them, then Google must remove links to that info globally, even in countries outside Europe.

It is as bizarre as it sounds: The ruling also basically insists that a few judges in France, and Europe more broadly, get the final say on what Google can and cannot link to in search results. Those judges claim the right to censor web search results globally. As Google is the default navigation system for most of the web in most of the world, this is serious.

Google faces fines of up to 5% of its operating costs, or $2.5 billion, if it does not comply, according to The Guardian. Ars Technica reports that fines for non-compliance are likely to start at €300,000 ($335,000).

However, non-Europeans cannot make "right to be forgotten" requests outside Europe.

Sorry, America!

CNIL said:

Finally, contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe.

That last part of the CNIL statement is confusing. On the one had, CNIL specifically states it wants links removed from all Google's regional search engines, because "if this right was limited to some extensions, it could be easily circumvented." On the other, it seems to be saying that French law should not be applied outside France. The distinction seems to be that if a company offers services in France or Europe, then it must abide by French law even if those laws require global application.

Americans will likely laugh out loud at the news. And on first glance it would appear that Google is not likely to comply with the global censorship of its core product by bureaucrats in Brussels or Paris.

But ... hold that thought.

Google has already complied with the EU's "right to be forgotten" law so far, with disastrous results. Here is The Telegraph's ever-growing list of censored stories - it includes investigations of a pimp who ran a network of 600 prostitutes, and the former president of the UK Law Society, who allegedly engaged in identity fraud. These stories aren't alleged to be false. They're simply alleged to be inconvenient for the people they're about, and their requests have been honoured by Google under the new law. Here is the BBC's list of censored stories. Here are a few from The Guardian. You're not even allowed to search for stories about the ban!

All those stories are now about to disappear from Google globally, assuming Google continues to obey EU law.

There is good reason to think Google will continue to obey the French.

The European Commission may have Google over a barrel on this, and not just because of the potential for $1 billion fines.

The company is currently the subject of a European Commission investigation into whether it is a monopoly or not. Google has close to 90% share of all searches conducted in Europe. Google's problem now is, if it decides to ignore CNIL it will look exactly as if it does have monopoly power to override the laws of democratic countries and continent-wide trade agreements. If it buckles, then it damages its most valuable product.

Expect Google to appeal.

But in the meantime, be afraid: France really does think it's in charge.