Re: So in summary...
"No. If Google just allow anyone's request without complaining that's OK." -- Since this is not only the easiest but the most profitable undeniably legal route, if they fight to avoid taking it, does that therefore logically mean profit isn't their primary driver? ;-)
"The point is that it would be nice if everyone was honest, and called a spade a spade. So Google could say this is bad, it'll hurt our profits" -- I'm having the same reaction as Google, I don't like where these ripples are going, and last time I checked I don't have a financial interest. My spade doesn't seem to be your spade, but does seem to be their spade.
"sock puppets" -- I'll admit here to not knowing which ones you mean. I think I ignored all the wafflers on both sides. I can see Wales, and I can imagine him personally hating this ruling, and I suspect Wikipedia get Google money, so, him? *Might* these be his own opinions tho?
"And they try to claim that somehow the law doesn't apply to them" -- If you mean the geolocation argument, I thought that was a lawyer thing actually - throw everything at it. Whenever I look at a big court cases, you see a kitchen sink fly past at some point. I'd need more datapoints tho to declare it a trait of the *client*.
"<The bit about lawbreaking>" -- Yeah, that's the thing that reaaally bugs me. If you're not handling personal data, you're not a data controller, and those laws don't apply to you, so you aren't a lawbreaker. The court declared Google *was* a data controller - even though it can't in advance identify which data has *made it into* a data controller, nor therefore *control* that data, or refuse to handle it. Would you enjoy suddenly being given *that* job?
"I can't remember him being unfair or inaccurate in any of his articles about them" -- I applaud your success in posting. You've fared much better than I on the same subject. Put it this way, now you know about the Ruling unexpectedly classifying Google as a Data Controller at least. It would have been, in my opinion, unfair, to leave that bit out, as it would mean that Google really weren't breaking any laws until the Court moved Google onto the other side of them.
"But it seems to me that The Register has a balance of writers and opinions on most subjects" -- Oh indeed. But the energy spent destroying can never be undone by the same spent building, and "It will be nice when Google has to lawyer up rather than us, since we did the work of finding and publishing the information in the first place and all they did was put ads next to a clip of it. - Ed" ... *shrug*.
"I'd say the loss of privacy is somewhat worth it for the services provided - and you have a choice to not use Google's services if you don't think so" -- I'm still fuzzy on this 'loss of privacy' thing. As far as I can tell, people are so data-incontinent that every site they visit has their CC+security number, home address, mothers maiden name and IP address. What is it people think Google has they haven't already given to everyone else?