Europe's highest court issued a daunting order to search and data giant Google recently: allow people to be forgotten. Although seemingly against its very foundations, the Mountain View-based search giant agreed Friday to comply with new European regulations providing individuals with the right to opt out of search engine results.

Europe's "right to be forgotten" has raised many questions, many of which inevitably end up back in the United States, home of Google. Europe's highest court ruled in favor of search engine result oppositionists earlier this month, forcing companies like Google to either acquiesce, or risk losing an important market to the stigma of Big Brother.

The reason Google has emerged as the face of the debate is simple: Google commands the search engine market share in Europe. Not by a little, but by a lot. Amidst pending proxy legal battles with Apple and other companies comparing it to the Microsoft monopoly of the 90's, Google now bears the brunt of public backlash due to its size. Europe wants Google to give individuals an option to opt out of its search engine results -- so what does Google do?

The only thing a company can do when it comes to the question of individual rights and representation -- consent. Google launched an online web portal, complete with an easy-to-fill out form, where it will take requests to remove personalized data from search results. According to the New York Times, Google received 12,000 such requests in the first day alone.

The larger question, is of course, what ripples this move has. Europe is a major world player, but so is the United States, where such a request would be tantamount to anti-capitalistic treason, or would it be?

The FTC recently entered the data broker industry debate with a recommendation of its own: allow U.S. individuals access to a personalized web portal where they can then see what data about them is being marketed, and if the need arises, where they can opt out of the whole system. Sound familiar? It should, because it's essentially two steps ahead of the European ruling (bear in mind the FTC merely recommended Congress to consider certain matters in upcoming legislation, unlike the Europe case, where a ruling was handed down by a judge).

"With respect to data brokers that sell marketing products, the Commission recommends that Congress consider legislation requiring data brokers to provide consumers access to their data, including sensitive data held about them, at a reasonable level of detail, and the ability to opt out of having it shared for marketing purposes," reads the FTC report titled "Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability."

The two scenarios have their distinct nuances, but the point in each case is the same. As more lives are made digital, willingly or not, individuals are growing increasingly aware of their cyber footprint, and policy makers are beginning to make it a priority.

For more stories like this, follow us on Twitter!