The Right to Be Forgotten: How Delisting Really Works
25 February 2026 · Mary Molloy Solicitors
The phrase promises erasure from the internet; the right delivers something narrower and still valuable — removal of specific results from searches for your name, where the content is inadequate, irrelevant or excessive and no overriding public interest applies. The page survives; its permanent attachment to your name does not.
What makes a strong application
Time and irrelevance are the engine: old matters long resolved, reporting of allegations that came to nothing, material about a private life with no public dimension, seriously outdated information presented as current. The application identifies the exact URLs, explains who you are (a private individual is stronger than a public figure), and confronts the public-interest question directly rather than hoping it goes unasked.
What stays findable
Recent matters of genuine public interest, information about your professional and public activities, and content the public has a continuing claim to find — the balancing is real, and search engines refuse accordingly. Convictions and insolvencies sit on a spectrum where time, seriousness and your current role all weigh; blanket rules do not exist, which is why borderline applications benefit from being argued rather than merely submitted.
After a refusal
A refusal is a position, not a verdict. The escalation is a complaint to the Data Protection Commission, which adjudicates delisting disputes, and the application itself can be strengthened and resubmitted as circumstances change — the passage of time is cumulative evidence. Where the underlying content is false rather than merely old, defamation law is the parallel track, and often the stronger one; the remedies are best chosen together.
Read more in our main guide: The Right to Erasure: Deletion and the Right to Be Forgotten · or back to the blog.
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