“This strips away the effectiveness of this law, and varies the rights granted to persons according to the Internet user who consults the search engine, rather than the person concerned”, said the data watchdog CNIL. If the request is not applied Google may face sanctions proceedings.

A European court ruled in 2014 that any individual can request that some results connected to their names be removed from search engines under certain criteria.

Rejecting Google’s request in August to review its “right to be forgotten” order, France’s Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), had ordered the search giant to comply or face sanctions. For example, if the request is made from France then google.fr. Europeans were able to switch to google.com and see the search results without any censoring. The French privacy authority said that it had turned down Google’s appeal for the ruling to be restricted to Europe. It also gave birth to issues on whether European concepts of privacy supersede laws around freedom of expression of singular countries. The search giant fears the freedom of speech will be limited should it go forth and remove all the links from all the domains. That order, handed down in June, requires Google to delist Internet results in right-to-be-forgotten cases not just for European extensions – such as google.fr in France – but across all extensions globally for the search engine.

Google now must immediately comply with the CNIL’s decision to remove all of the “Right to be Forgotten” results for all citizens of France across Google worldwide.

Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, who is the president of CNIL, has rejected Google’s appeal. Google also remarked that it does not believe the French regulator has the authority to expand the scope of the rule to a global level. Fines would likely start at around €300,000 ($336,000) but could increase to between 2-5% of Google’s global operating costs.

Finally, contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe.

Google’s innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the world with information every day. However, French law allows Google to appeal against financial penalties levied against it over the disputed Right to Be Forgotten issue.