Google faces up to image problem in Europe

And in a development that should deeply concern a company whose motto is "Don't Be Evil," some European online freedoms groups are now identifying it as public enemy number one.

That has boosted the case for the European Commission, the EU's executive, to demand Google change the way it displays its search results to allow for greater competition. If the two can't reach a compromise deal, Google could face fines worth billions of dollars, as Microsoft did in the 2000s.

Anti-Google sentiment used to be an "edge phenomenon," said Hans de Zwart of Bits of Freedom, a Dutch digital rights group. "Now it's slowly moving toward the core," he said. "More and more people are feeling this."

Reasons for the company's fall from favor include products such as Google Glass that raise privacy concerns, as well as ripple effects from recent revelations about U.S. government spy programs.

Zwart said that fairly or not, Google has become directly linked to the National Security Agency in many Europeans' minds.

"Now we have a very clear argument for why it is a bad idea to store data in a centralized fashion with an American company," Zwart said.

"I think it's trivial for the NSA, if they know I have a Gmail account, to get all the data from it."

To comply with the court's May 12 ruling, Google announced Friday it has opened a digital hotline to let Europeans complain when links to embarrassing personal information about them turns up in a search of their names. The complaints will be vetted and removed unless a company-appointed panel says the public's right to access the information outweighs a complainant's right to privacy.