INTERNET search giant Google has removed a Herald story about a woman from Shetland who was jailed for drug dealing from its search results under the EU's "right to be forgotten" rules.

Krystyna Gouldie was jailed for 18 months at the High Court in Aberdeen when she admitted supplying amphetamines and ecstasy, according to a court report published in this newspaper in 1997. She was caught after her mother Elizabeth tipped off police that her daughter had received a parcel of drugs by post.

A second woman, Katrina Manson, also admitted the same charges. She was jailed for seven years.

The Herald has now been notified that the story, which remains on our website, will no longer show up in searches made using Ms Gouldie's name on any of Google's European websites, including www.google.co.uk

The search engine giant does not disclose who sought to have the story removed. Google began providing a service to allow EU nationals to ask for personal data to be cut out of online search results in May, after the new European Union Court of Justice ruled "irrelevant" historical personal data should be deleted. The search engine, however, is processing each request to balance "privacy rights of the individual with the public's right to know and distribute information".