GOOGLE has removed a Herald story about former Scotland footballer Ray Stewart assaulting his wife's lover from its search results under the EU's "right to be forgotten" rules.
Mr Stewart, who played for Dundee United and West Ham as well as the national side, broke the jaw and nose of a nightclub disc jockey he found in bed with his then estranged partner, according to a court report published in this newspaper in 1996.
The Herald has now been notified that the story, which remains on our website, will no longer show up in searches made using Mr Stewart's name on any of Google's European websites, including www.google.co.uk.
The search engine giant does not disclose who sought to have the story removed.
Mr Stewart was sentenced to 240 hours of community service after admitting the attack on DJ Patrick Ward. Such a conviction would normally be considered spent after five years.
The Herald has also been notified that two other stories featuring English court cases, one published in 1993 and another in 2000, would no longer show up in searches of European Google sites. The 1993 story is about allegations of theft made against a film producer. The 2000 report is about a Yorkshire butcher who was accused of blackmailing his wife in a divorce settlement by threatening to pass on videos of her engaged in group sex. Both stories remain on The Herald website.
Google began providing a service to allow EU nationals to ask for personal data to be cut out of online search results in May, after the new European Union Court of Justice ruled "irrelevant" historical personal data should be deleted.
The search engine, however, is processing each request to balance "privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information".
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