Google has recently launched a special page in order to publicize its advisory council on the “right to be forgotten” case. It invites users to submit their comments on the EU ruling and suggestions on how they want Google to apply it. According to the European Court of Justice, anyone living in the European Union can ask search engines to remove search results containing their name.

Since then, Google has received over 70,000 requests of such kind and claimed that each of these requests needs to be assessed by a lawyer. Apparently, the company has even started recruiting a new team of legal staff to process the applications.

The advisory council page explains that its purpose is to collect input from Europeans and announced its plans to hold consultations in Europe this fall. In addition, the council also invites contributions from the tech and media companies, along with government and academia.

For each of the received requests, Google is required to weigh an individual’s right to be forgotten with the public’s right to know and somehow strike that balance right. This is why the council asks everyone whether they want their submission to be made public.

The council itself consists of 10 appointees. Two of them are Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt and chief legal officer David Drummond. The council also includes technologists, academics, legal experts and even a journalist: their details follow below.

• Jimmy Wales is the person most of you probably know – he co-founded Wikipedia and you could see his face on the main page quite often.
• Lidia Kolucka-Zuk is a trained lawyer and former executive director of the Trust for Civil Society from Poland.
• Frank La Rue is known for the work in human rights, which has included conflict negotiation and a role as special rapporteur for UN human rights council.
• Sylvie Kaufmann is an editorial director at Le Monde.
• Luciano Floridi is a professor of philosophy and information ethics at the Oxford Internet Institute.
• José-Luis Piñar, a lawyer, is also known for working in various legal roles – for example, as a director of the Spanish Data Protection Agency.
• Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a German Member of Parliament, is also known as a former Justice Minister.
• Peggy Valcke is a research professor in the field of media and telecoms regulation, online journalism and privacy and social networks.