Google has rejected the demand of the French data protection authority to censor search results all over the world under the so-called “right to be forgotten” court ruling. Such a decision of the company could see its French subsidiary facing daily fines, but the French authority hasn’t declared any explicit sanction yet.

The court ruling in question was handed down more than a year ago and required the search engine to remove links to pages that are considered irrelevant. The ruling was based on a case brought by a Spanish individual who wanted to remove an auction notice of his repossessed home, and resulted in a demand for Google to accept requests from the public for links to be removed from European domains.

For the first 10 months after the court ruling, Google had received about 220,000 requests to remove links to online data, including requests from criminals, politicians and public figures. However, only less than half of the requests have been granted, even though more than 95% of the requests come from everyday members of the public.

This was not the end of the story. Last September, a Parisian court also ordered the search engine to remove links that violate the “right to be forgotten” from its entire global network, threatening Google with daily €1,000 fines. The French national data protection authority later joined the demand and gave Google 15 days to comply, but the company rejected, calling the demand disproportionate and unnecessary. In addition, such move could set a precedent that one country’s laws can control access to content all over the world.

Like any global company, Google has to review its rules in every separate country, but it can’t apply all changes to its global policy. For example, Facebook was also recently ordered by a German regulator to relax its real-name policy in the country.