Is Jimmy Wales a Lawyer? No? Then he should shut the feck up...
Google mouthpieces: 'Right to be Forgotten' should not apply on google.com
After much debate and a seven-city tour of Europe, Google’s self-appointed advisory board has finally published its opinion on the so-called “right to be forgotten”. Last May, Google was ordered to remove links to “outdated or irrelevant” information about a Spanish individual by the European Court of Justice. Since then, …
COMMENTS
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Friday 6th February 2015 13:50 GMT ratfox
Read the article again, he's right
Currently, if Google decides to accept a request and hide the link to an article for some searches, there is no recourse for the owner of the web site. They might try to convince Google, but they cannot appeal to privacy regulators the way the original requestor could, had the request been rejected.
This is because though the ECJ has ruled people had a "right to be forgotten", they did not include a "right to be heard". There is basically no law that can force Google to display a link. In fact, they often demote sites while tweaking algorithms, or to punish SEO abusers, and nobody has a say in the matter.
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Friday 6th February 2015 20:36 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Read the article again, he's right
> Currently, if Google decides to accept a request and hide the link to an article for some searches, there is no recourse for the owner of the web site.
The request refers to what Google, and not the owner of the site being referenced, should and/or should not display.
You have said yourself, it is Google's index so in principle they decide what goes into it. The law under discussion attempts to implement (to better or worse effect) a means for them to comply with existing data protection and privacy laws.
An equivalent of the US DMCA take down notice that, directed to website owners, requested the de-listing of personal information at the affected person's behest--entailing the website owner's liability if failing to comply--might perhaps be a better approach (if not abused by deep-pocket bullies like in the DMCA case), but for now this is what we have.
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Friday 6th February 2015 14:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
The google.com thing
Actually, I would have loved to occasionally direct searches to originate in the US, but as soon as you try hitting google.com it throws you into a regional version so it doesn't surprise me that few EU users use it - it's hard to make it so.
As for the main topic: company sponsored club says company activities are 100% kosher. Quelle surprise, news at eleven...
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Friday 6th February 2015 20:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The google.com thing
> as soon as you try hitting google.com it throws you into a regional version
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Saturday 7th February 2015 15:46 GMT Pseu Donyme
Re: The google.com thing
>Does this extend?...
I suppose it could, if an external entity is under the de jure and de facto jurisdiction of where the information is displayed; e.g. while the Chinese certainly would seem to have de jure jurisdiction over what gets displayed - i.e. physically takes place - in China, it is hard to see the existence of de facto jurisdiction i.e. the ability to actually force a British news site to do anything about it in practice.
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Friday 6th February 2015 15:26 GMT Curly4
It seems that the ECJ wants its cake and to be able to eat it at the same time. Google should should push that all delisting orders (not requests) should come from the ECJ and not from a request by the person(s) being delisted. It should not be Google (or any other search engine) to make the decision to delist or not. That should be an order that comes from a LEGAL authority and not the company who is to carry out the delisting. Then the search engine(s) would be required to carry out the order as a minimum not as a maximum.
But then the ECJ would be the one who would catch the fallout instead of the search engine(s) who do the delisting and I don't think that the ECJ wants to take the heat for any screw up (as the Spanish did). So Google and other search engines should continue to do as Google did in Spain and when they get a delisting request then honor that request to the nth degree.
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Friday 6th February 2015 23:10 GMT Gannon (J.) Dick
Re: Turn about is fair play
You are right Steve, sorry for the downvotes from the Hippies who have federalized data sets, the semantic web (software) and DNS (a deterministic appliance implemented in software) smushed together in their heads. It's a modern form of cognitive dissonance or the placebo effect. Take your pick.
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Friday 6th February 2015 17:57 GMT PacketPusher
Why the search engine?
I still don't understand why this is even a google thing. Why mess with the search engines? If you get the source information removed, the information will timeout in the search engines. If I recall correctly, the original case involved information at a Spanish newspaper site. Spain is part of the EU. Why not sue to get the article removed there?
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Friday 6th February 2015 19:57 GMT Cynic_999
Re: Why the search engine?
Its not at all straightforward. The original article has perhaps sat in an online newspaper archive for the past 30 years - there is no more legal power to have that archive removed than there would be to have it cut from physical newspaper archives in public libraries. And sat in such archives it is unlikely to do any harm because the only people who would take the trouble to look it up would be those who already know that it exists. The damage to the individual is caused only when the article is shoved under the nose of anyone who happens to type their name (or something associated with them) into a search engine, such as a potential employer or a new boy/girlfriend etc. Few people under 50 years old think or act the same as they did 30 years ago, and the harm is caused when people judge a person by something foolish they did long ago when in effect they are no longer the same person.
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Saturday 7th February 2015 16:10 GMT Pseu Donyme
Re: Why the search engine?
>I still don't understand ...
The legal basis is that Google is a data controller processing personal information in the sense of the data protection directive; in this context it is irrelevant whether the information is otherwise available or not, what matters is that Google 'processes' personal information and some of this 'processing' (at least displaying the results) takes place in an EU member counrtry.
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Friday 6th February 2015 20:36 GMT Number6
Changing the Norm
To some extent it's the wrong solution to the problem. One day, probably 20 or 30 years from now, pretty much anyone of working age is going to have something embarrassing on-line somewhere and it'll become the norm. Employers will learn to distinguish between evidence of current bad behaviour and what you did as a student but have outgrown. The world will end up with a "so what?" attitude when dodgy photos from the past get dredged up and they'll largely cease to matter.
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Friday 6th February 2015 23:36 GMT Gannon (J.) Dick
Re: Changing the Norm
Hell no.
Google has prospered by being a serial gamer of Civil Court. Nothing wrong with Civil Court per se, it accomplished it's goal which was to stop duels of honor among gentlemen. Civil Law, on the other hand, had to cohabit an enviornment where those same gentlemen dined on the children of the little people. Nothing too honorable about that. Never has been never will be the case. "Changing the Norm" is a creepy race to the creepy bottom.
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Friday 6th February 2015 20:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Straw man
The discussion revolving around domain names either completely misses the point intentionally or otherwise, or is a massive straw man.
Either way, it ignores what host names are¹: mere user-friendly mnemonics that resolve to one² IP address, which may or may not be (intended to be) reachable by a given user in a given geographical area.
There is nothing inherently "geographic" about domain names³ at a technical level.
¹ At the basic level applicable in this case.
² Or more, etc. Not getting into irrelevant detail.
³ Policy in some cases restricts who are allowed to operated under a given TLD. I don't know of any case where policy restricts who is allowed to ask a given TLD to be resolved.
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Saturday 7th February 2015 03:37 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Re: Straw man
The point is precisely that domains don't limit countries.
Google is saying that they removed it from google.es but continue to display the results in europe from google.com.
If they show Google.com in europe then it is a european site as far as european law is concerned. That it is hosted outside europe doesn't make it immune any more than pirate radio did or broadcasting illegal content from a Russian owned satelite would.
I assume Google is happy to take ad money when people outside the US click on google.com.
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Friday 6th February 2015 23:58 GMT Nanners
We are google damn it.
We own you. We can do what we pleAse. We are the keepers of humans. We also own a top secret off shore data collection center that even the government can't get into, all your health records... Right down to your DNA and if want to clone you we will. We also own and control DARPA and it's army of ai soldier bots. We decide what happens in this world and when and how it will end. If you want to enter our off world environ for the wealthy you better start saving now puny monkeys.
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Saturday 7th February 2015 16:33 GMT Pseu Donyme
Re: What makes something outdated?
You shouldn't be affected as there should be no reason to search by an individual's name (?): the ECJ decision was about Google removing certain result page when searching by the name, not removing the page from search results altogether (using other search terms).
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Monday 9th February 2015 22:24 GMT Gannon (J.) Dick
Re: What makes something outdated?
Life is too short to downvote a Dodgy Geezer, so I won't.
I will say that if a 30 year old did a study (work-for-hire) of current bankrupcies for you; sole sourced by Google; your geezer wrath would know no bounds. Nor would mine under those circumstances.
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Saturday 7th February 2015 10:47 GMT De Facto
Rights to remove links to pirated US content should not apply on google.de, google.fr etc?
Following the Google's logic, Google should stop removing links to disputed copyrighted content of American companies everywhere else but on google.com. Because only 5% of Europeans, if we had to believe to Google's lawyers, go to search for the American content on google.com.
Jokes aside, it is obvious that collecting a 'dirt' about milions of private people with outdated content ruining their private life or damaging their reputation, posted at some time as some anonymous comments on thousands of web sites of fairly decent reputation, such as local news or media sites, it generates more interest to search by person or company name. For instance, Google is often used to dig up something negative for an opponent bushing, or for playing kids having evil fun about each other searching on Google about their parents, or just for other casual evil. Therefore linking to outdated 'dirt' satisfies such an nefarious human interest and naturally generates more search traffic to Google and more dirty advertising revenues to Google. That explains Googles's millions shelled out for laywers and panel advisors, with obvious intent to keep maximum number of links to those evil postings about people private matters forever on the Google search index, in contrast to their policy of immediate removal of disputed copyrighted (pirated) content. That is the best evidence that number of Rights to Forget removal requests is not a technical problem for Goggle, and Google should stop misleading European regulators and just follow the court ruling same technical way they are already dealing with copyright disputes. I am amazed that European legal system falled victim to this obvious Google's tactics.
I also believe it will backfire for Goggle in their home country. Americans are the least protected nation from this privacy failure, and it is only a matter of time when Google is going to face a multi-billion legal class action on the American soil and pay a penalty as a total company failure to protect own home country citizens rights to forget.
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Saturday 7th February 2015 19:11 GMT tom dial
Re: Rights to remove links to pirated US content should not apply on google.de, google.fr etc?
There are, of course, some who think the appropriate way to remove unauthorized access to copyright material is to go after those who "share" it without authorization, and allow search engines to do index whatever they find. That is perfectly consistent with arguing that any "right to be forgotten" should be imposed on those who are offering the data rather than those, like Google, who index it.
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Monday 9th February 2015 15:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What about my right to know?
> There's no way their citizens have any right to be forgotten as far as I am concerned.
The "right to be forgotten" thing is some sensationalist name the press came up with. The applicable laws to the case at hand deal with data protection and privacy, both of which are important rights in the EU, both in a legal and in a Kantian sense.
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