A STORY about a funday at the Alderman Blaxill School in Colchester has been the first to be to be erased from Google searches under the controversial new ‘right to be forgotten’ laws.

Google yesterday notified Newsquest Essex, publisher of the Colchester Gazette, it had removed the story about the event organised by the school's Parents and Community Group in May 2008. 

Critics have labelled the ruling by the ECJ – that articles deemed irrelevant or out of date should be wiped from search engine results – censorship and open to abuse by criminals and the powerful who will try to hide information from the public.

The article also includes information about how the Shrub End school faces a merger with Thomas, Lord Audley school, in Monkwick

It is not known why the article was removed from search results. 

A story on another of Newsquest's online titles, the Oxford Mail, was also removed. 

Google notified Newsquest Oxfordshire, publisher of the Oxford Mail and The Oxford Times, it had removed the story about Dr Robert Daniels-Dwyer – who had been convicted of trying to steal £200-worth of Christmas presents from Boots in Cornmarket Street, Oxford – following a European Court of Justice ruling last month.

How the ECJ ruling is flawed

The European Court of Justice’s ruling only extends to Google’s operations and websites in Europe.

That means people living outside of Europe – or people who just use the web address Google.com rather than Google.co.uk – can see the ‘deleted’ search results banned by the court.

You can get around the ECJ ruling by using google.com rather than google.co.uk