The tech giant has agreed to change the way it implements the new EU “right to be forgotten” measure. The reason was tones of critics for being over-zealous in the approach to blocking results in name-based searches.

Over 70,000 individuals have submitted requests to delete links to articles containing their names after a ruling by the European Court of Justice was delivered two months ago. A number of online media groups, including The Guardian, Daily Mail and BBC, complained when the search engine started removing links to their pages.

BBC’s economics editor claimed that Google had cast him into oblivion after a blogpost he published about the former Merrill Lynch boss was removed from some search results. Google admitted that the American company could be clearer in the way it informed publishers about the removals of search-terms.

Google explained it was undergoing a “learning process” and choosing the best way to implement the ruling. At the same time, the company denied that it was deliberately trying to subvert the judgment by being too fast to remove links upon the requests. BBC’s editor had wrongly assumed that Merrill Lynch boss was the one who had made the removal request. In reality, the request had come from a member of the public who had left a comment on the post, but the company agreed that it should provide publishers with more information about search-term deletions.

However, the blogpost in question remains widely available via almost all search terms – only if you search for the name of the commentator, the post wouldn’t show up on a Google search. Google claimed that its effort to comply with the EU ruling is a difficult process. The company promised to be committed to doing it as responsibly as it possibly can.

Aside from BBC case, 6 links to Guardian stories have also been removed from some search results, 3 of them being about a controversy involving a former Scottish Premier League referee McDonald who admitted lying about awarding a penalty in the Scottish FA Cup. The Guardian complained that the company was pursuing an overly broad interpretation of the recent court ruling and went too far in removing search results. In response, Google defended the way it addressed the court’s judgment, saying that it is obliged to comply with that law.