Google has received 12,000 requests in a single day from people who wanted part of their online history to be “forgotten”.

Google set up a service where people can have search results linking to pages with information about them removed from the site, after it was ordered to do so by the European Court of Justice.

The Court had ruled that individuals have the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches if the data is inaccurate or outdated, but the ruling does not extend to the sites hosting the information in the first place.

The ruling was related specifically to Google results too, so it can be assumed that anyone still wishing to access such information on others would be able to through alternative avenues.

The ruling was made in relation to a Spanish case, and the removal service is not available in Australia.

Google says it will look at each request individually, to see if it meets the court’s criteria, and says there is no set time-frame for how long it will take for links to disappear.

There has been growing concern in Europe lately about a person’s right and ability to protect their own data and online reputation.

The most recent case was launched by a Spanish man, who sought to have 16-year-old articles about him removed from Google results.

He argued that his reputation continued to be tarnished by articles about his house being repossessed, and he would like them to be forgotten.

Google said the court’s finding was disappointing.