On Thursday, Google began removing search results to comply with the new “right to be forgotten ruling,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal

Google did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment, only saying that the Journal’s report was accurate.

An attorney named Mario Costeja González had filed a complaint with the Spanish Data Protection Agency claiming that his privacy rights had been violated. Specifically, Gonzalez was displeased that entering his name in Google’s search engine drew results including a legal notice dating back to a 1998 story on his forced property sale to satisfy mounting personal debt.

In May 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Google to erase links related to webpages in certain cases where the information is deemed “inadequate” or “irrelevant.”

Earlier this month, the number of requests reached over 41,000.

As we reported, Google’s form for such removal is simple, but it comes with a few caveats for the user, the most important being that a copy of a valid photo ID must be attached. The public can make takedown requests on behalf of others, but the photo ID of the target individual must always be attached.

Complainants have to provide their name and e-mail address, the country whose law applies to the request, the name of the person featured in the relevant search results, and a list of every URL they want taken down. The key part of the form is the complainant's explanation for the takedown since, as Google notes, the EU ruling only relates to information in its index that is "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed."

Have you submitted a "right to be forgotten" request and received a response? Let us know!