A news report about the conversion of George Osborne’s brother to Islam has been hidden by Google.
The article, published five years ago and detailing the conversion of Dr Adam Osborne to Islam in preparation for his marriage to a Bangladeshi-born plastic surgeon, was removed from search listings by the internet giant.
The original story, on a British newspaper website, remains online.
It revealed how Dr Osborne had been studying the Koran and given the name Mohammed for the ceremony.
Dr Osborne was later suspended from practice by the General Medical Council for six months after being found guilty “serious misconduct” when he falsified a prescription for drugs for an escort.
The removal from listings came after a request to Google from an unknown person.
It follows a highly controversial ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling in the European Court of Justice last month which gave people the right to have “inadequate”, “irrelevant” or “no longer relevant” search results removed from internet searches.
Critics have denounced the ruling as an assault on free speech that will allow criminals and disgraced politicians to hide their past from the public.
Today two links to Telegraph.co.uk about Dougie McDonald, a Scottish referee who admitted lying about a penalty decision in a Celtic game, were reinstated.
However, links to a Telegraph report on claims Robert Sayer, the former Law Society chief, faked complaints against his Asian deputy remain hidden. A hearing refused to refer the allegations to the police.
Over 70,000 requests have been made in total to the search engine asking for 250,000 links to information be removed from Google's European site branches. The search enginee is receiving 1,000 requests per day, each of which has to be evaluated by lawyers.
Individuals can only apply for the removal of a link to an article or picture, rather than the deletion of the information itself.
The message 'Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe' is displayed at the bottom of search results
The EU ruling was a result of a case brought by Spaniard Mario Costeja González, who requested the deletion of a link to a newspaper article detailing the repossession of his home after he hit financial difficulty in 1998.
Peter Barron, a Google spokesman, said the ruling was “not something we welcome, that we wanted.”
“But it is now the law and we’re obliged to comply with the law.” Asked whether he considered the law workable, he said: “It’s early days.”
It has also emerged that Google is also blurring the homes of famous people including Sir Paul McCartney, Tony Blair and disgraced banker Fred Goodwin on the Street View website, in response to homeowners’ requests.
