British Lords: Euro 'right to be forgotten' ruling 'unreasonable and unworkable' Peers sitting in the upper house of the British parliament have branded Europe’s court decision on killing links on search indexes – controversially dubbed the “right to be forgotten” ruling – “unworkable, unreasonable and wrong in principle”. The EU subcommittee on Home Affairs, Health and Education said in a report that the …
CJEU without coordinating with 28 nations' court systems the threw a huge burden on those systems. Without understanding what it was doing, a court without law-clerks botched the word-smithing and chose to remain ignorant of technological constraints. Like an ignoramus playing with a guillotine the CJEU cut its hand off and put its own head in the guillotine. Still calling for Google's head the dolt in charge is about guillotine herself while shrieking 'off with their heads'.
I think you're wrong. First of all the court is only changed with interpreting the law. They don't write the law so what you've said there looks a bit silly.
Secondly just because Google have ridden rough shod across our rights doesn't mean someone shouldn't stand up and say they've got to stop.
It's not that hard for them and once people start to realise that this isn't a right to be forgotten things will settle down. In either case I've got no sympathy because they've made a lot of money out of us when they must have known this was an issue. They just hoped they could apply enough pressure to get away with it.
The CJEU was a little vague in its ruling and its effect on the search world. It clearly implied that people have a right to be forgotten, yet in the same breath as saying that newspaper archives shouldn't be affected by this ruling, it have this judgement on a search link to a newspaper archive record.
The CJEU was trying to achieve a sense of proportionality, but it should have really had the guts to say "Welcome to the modern world" and thrown the case out.
“Anyone anywhere in the world now has information at the touch of a button, and that includes detailed personal information about people in all countries of the globe.”
And they don't see this as a major problem and why the call for the RTBF was brought up in the first place?
The government officials argued that the search index ruling was impossible to enforce for smaller search engines that don’t have the resources of an ad behemoth like Google to process thousands of takedown requests.
You know what, the regulations in my industry are burdensome as well, for a small company. Does that mean we can simply forget all those pesky hygene and health and safety things, we just don't have the resources to cope with them! Nope? Thought not.
“It is wrong in principle to leave search engines themselves the task of deciding whether to delete information or not, based on vague, ambiguous and unhelpful criteria, and we heard from witnesses how uncomfortable they are with the idea of a commercial company sitting in judgment on issues like that,”
Again, bending the truth. Nobody is asking the search engines to delete anything! According to this ruling, they should not be deleting anything! What they should be doing, if the request is valid, is removing the results in a keyword search that includes the applicants name. If they use a different set of keywords, that don't include the applicants name, then the link to the article will still be returned.
For example, if I had been arrested for murder and released without charge, but the first thing that turned up when searching for my name 10 years later was the article on my arrest, then I could ask for searches including "big_D" to not return that article, as I was never charged or sentenced. Therefore, searching for "big_D" wouldn't return the link. Searching for the name of the victim or murder in general would still return the link, but it would probably be buried way down the list.
So, somebody researching the murder would still find out that I was arrested during the investigation, but that I was never charged. Somebody searching for my name directly would not find out this information, which is irrelevant to my current standing.
And all because Google is kicking its toys out of the pram.
So... Say we live in the same town where you had been arrested for murder and released without charge and any time anyone mentions your name I say 'I know that big_D fella - He was arrested for murder'. Legally I am totally entitled to do that because I am not slandering you, I am just reporting the truth. Why should it be any different for Google?
Agreed, but look at it from the traditional press point of view. The press prints it, people read it and remember it or not. After a while, if I wasn't charged or prosecuted, then most people would start to forget, the newspapers would be recycled, used to wrap chips in or whatever.
Later, anybody who was really interested in finding out the facts would then have to go to the paper archives and research the case and would probably come across the original article as part of the research into the murder. The information is still there, but as it is irrelevant information about me (E.g. I was one of a hundred people in a dragnet, 99 of whom were later set free), so it shouldn't be one of the first things that pops up when people search for big_D
It shouldn't be the first thing that pops into my head every time someone mentions your name in a pub either, as I'm sure you are a fascinating and well-rounded individual and you almost certainly didn't do it anyway.
The thing is though, it is the most interesting thing I know about you, so that is what immediately comes to mind when someone says your name. It's the same with Google, and while it might be nice for you were that not the case, I fail to see how they can possibly be legally compelled to censor their results to hide information that is in the public domain, for your comfort.
It isn't about censoring.
Say a prospective employer searches for you and all they find is that you were arrested on suspicion of murder?
If you request the link to your name is removed, they won't see that. If somebody searches for the victim, they will still find the article where you were arrested. No censorship, you just actually have to use more generic terms to do with the case to find it, as opposed to your name.
@Alpha Tony: I am open to correction, but I believe that if you went around constantly saying "That big_D guy was arrested for murder", big_D would have a pretty good claim for defamation, as he could argue - and the courts would probably agree - that by repeating and emphasising that fact you were making a clear insinuation that he was guilty.
Claiming that you were "just reporting the truth" would be sophistry, it's like going around telling everyone that "So-and-so has never denied beating his wife" when So-and-so has never been asked. If you are clearly trying to damage someone's reputation than the courts are going to see through it.
> I believe that if you went around constantly saying "That big_D guy was arrested for murder", big_D would have a pretty good claim for defamation
Exactly.
I was once trained in the fine art of job interviewing, and one thing that was stressed to us very heavily was that, if someone has a big gaping hole in the timeline on their CV, we absolutely must not ask about it. The reason for this is that it could be prison time. If their conviction is considered spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, they are not obliged to declare it to employers, and employers, if they find out about it, are not allowed to hold it against them. If we ask about the gap in their CV and they either tell us they were in prison or they lie or avoid the question, then, if they then don't get the job, they have an extremely strong case for a tribunal against us, because, regardless of our actual reason for not hiring them, it's going to look pretty bloody obvious to everyone that it was the jail time. So far better, legally, to avoid finding out.
If other companies, due to the law, are making efforts to avoid finding out certain things about people, why should Google ignore those same laws? Which is, after all, all the EU court judgement said.
if someone has a big gaping hole in the timeline on their CV, we absolutely must not ask about it. The reason for this is that it could be prison time.
That's interesting - I was advised not to have any gaping holes on my CV, because an interviewer would assume it was something like prison time, and that would be the end of that.
I filled in the hole in my CV - which wasn't prison time, it was arse-around-spending-redundancy-money time - and things improved immediately.
Of course, that didn't stop the inquisition I got from one interviewer who insisted on asking me *many* times about the time between University and the first entry on my CV. The answer was the the same each time - the agent hadn't sent him the back page on my CV. Oh how I wish I'd remembered the advice I'd been given always to carry a clean copy of the CV to interviews...
Vic.
You're changing the emphasis here. I didn't say that I was 'going around constantly saying "That big_D guy was arrested for murder"', I specifically said when people mentioned his/her name. Upon discussing an individual it is surely entirely natural to mention the most news-worthy thing that you know about them. Provided I stuck to the unembellished facts you wouldn't have a leg to stand on claiming defamation.
As I implied in my later post, if I knew something more interesting about them then that would likely be my conversational gambit, but as I don't they are stuck with this. The same principle applies with Google.
You can't. That is the problem.
For a private blog, you could probably argue that the article could be removed. for accredited press etc. they cannot take the article down (iit is public record). And the article should only ever be blocked when it is searched for using a specific person's name. All other combinations of search criteria relevant to the page should still return the link.
Redaction redaction redaction: has no one heard of redaction. The originator of the digital article will remove and / or replace the person's name with a suitable marker. Google or search engine of choice and their huge database will detect this to change and modify the returns.
You should always divert the source. It is the owner of the dog's responsibility to pick up the shit not the runner passing by; just because they smell it; becoming banned from talking about whose dog has the smelliest shit for the rest of their lives!!
If you want to be forgotten Mr Mosley don't do kinky shit wearing a Nazi uniform. Can I posthumously apply for Hitler or Jimmy Saville's right to be forgotten? No? Sure - there's public interest but who decides that, eh? Big brother Google? Please have a listen to the 'Orwellian new speech' piece on Radio 4.
THIS IS CENSORSHIP and modification of the past! If you've been cleared of a murder it should be your right to make google populate the advertising section with : "They didn't do it!" and construct the return order to the most favourable results. It is not their right to EDIT HISTORY though!
[ Of removing pages from crawlers ... ]
> You can't. That is the problem.
You can. robots.txt will do it trivially.
It would be a better use of the justice system to penalise crawlers that publish outdate information after specifically ignoring robots.txt. But that would be too easy...
Vic.
The problem is the page isn't delisted from the search engine, it is just not shown in results with the applicant's name.
Whatever you might be talking about now, it's different to what the OP suggested, and you declared impossible...
Vic.
This post has been deleted by its author
I'm trying to explain the way the ruling worked - the court told the complainant and the source website that the article could not be legally removed - so it is irrelevant, whether putting it in robots.txt or deleting the site is technically possible; legally it can't be done.
That is why it falls to the search engine to remove the result when the complainant's name is given in the search term.
If you search for house repossessions / auctions in the area, you should still be able to find the article, if Google have done their job properly.
I think this may impact quite a bit of Europe - it certainly sets a precedent at the European level (not a legal one, but it may mean other countries will adopt the same view).
Of course, if you're just questioning why a news site based in the UK is reporting on UK data matters, then I'm not sure what I can do to make it any clearer for you.
Well all this blew up because a solicitor in Spain didn't want a bankruptcy to be found out about when people Google his name because it looks bad. Spain who?
Which is now the first thing people will find out about when people Google his name or about the history of RTBF. Internationally. Forever.
+1 to the un-elected house.
Not tarred with the need to garner votes or bend to influence from corporations and other world governments they have made a very common sense statement. Lets hope the lot at the other end of the corridor take heed.
Lord Denning, and his friend on the Clapham Omnibus, would be impressed.
Sigh. The whole point of computerisation is to remove processing tasks from humans and mechanise them. The government seems hell-bent on de-mechanising things as much as possible.
Maybe this is the government's secret plan to increase employment, de-mechanise as much of the web as possible and force companies to employ humans to do it. Right, where's the job adverts at?
If those linking to the data are to be let off the leash, then it will fall to the data providers to review what they hold?
I can see many data sources considering removing everything that is older than, let's say two years, to ensure compliance, instead of the painstakingly expensive option of case by case.
Ah, now it all becomes clear. Historic data will once again be back in the hands of the privileged few and therefore can be rewritten to suit without any oversight from the billion or so people who at the moment are invested in that data.
1984 by the back door. "We were never at war with Max Mosley. He fought courageously against the Nazis in stockings and leather thigh boots"
The problem is, they shouldn't be removing the information at all.
The search engines are being asked not to link under specific circumstances.
Take the French Post-It Wars link. The article itself is still valid, of public interest and relevant. Therefore it cannot and should not be removed by the court - public record.
I can't remember the name of the guy who wanted to be forgot, but if you type in his name + Paris Post-It Note War, you will not get the link. If you just type in Paris Post-It Note War, the link must still show up.
The thinking is, the source information is still searchable, in general terms, but if you search using a specific person's name, who does not want to be remembered for an event (and that isn't in the public interest and the information is no longer relevant), then you won't find mention of that event.
@ big_D. You are of course right, but it's the smaller engines that are still linking which raises the spectre of another way to skin this cat.
Perhaps, and I'm not trying to be contentious here, but perhaps we accept Google is the search God and that all other engines should be subservient to it.
That is, other search providers crawl through Googles lists to display their twist on results and not go it independently. Therefore Google does the de-listing work and this censured list becomes the de-facto face of the internet.
Or am I being totally naive, to trust Google not to take absolute advantage?
Yes, I probably am.
Maybe there should be a artbitur that goes through the requests and provides a list of names and the links that shouldn't be returned, which is then passed on to all search engines. That is the bit that doesn't really work at the moment, because most people just think about Google when they talk about search.
Plus, if you actually know about others, then you have to submit a request with each search provider in turn and if one rejects, then you have to go back and argue that the others have complied.
The EU brought in this measure, maybe they should provide the manpower to process the requests and provide the blacklist for all of the search engines.
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