5 ms·

What's so funny here? For example, if Google gave France the right to censor content based on "right to be forgotten" laws, why not other laws? For example, na

What's so funny here? For example, if Google gave France the right to censor content based on "right to be forgotten" laws, why not other laws? For example, nazi memorabilia is illegal in fr but not us (or most countries). And if Google gave fr the right, why not de? Or cn? Or any other country in the world?

NovaS1X 11y ago
It quite clearly states in the article that the laws apply to individuals requesting their personal data to be removed. This is not censorship. I agree there's a fine line that needs to be walked however I'm very sick and tired of the invasion of privacy that's become acceptable today and Google is an offender. I'v made my personal decisions to move away from as many Google services as possible and use pseudonyms as that's my choice and right, however, I do this because in Canada we don't have the same privacy protections that France does. I am well aware that by using Google Services I'm willingly giving up my information in exchange for their use and I've tailored my life around that assumption, however, not everyone is adept at this like I am and I think it's not morally alright to refuse the deletion of data requested by the individual who should rightfully own and control that data. I'm very, very, sick of the state of privacy today and I wish Google would've been fined significantly more. EDIT: for grammar
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Shouldn't the individuals request that their data is removed from the primary source? If that happens, google will relatively quickly remove those results from their index.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Yes, people should do that. Here's some thinking from 2010 about right to be forgotten and EU data protection law: https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/shared/Documents/EDPS/Publications/Speeches/2010/10-06-07_Speech_Cyber-harassment_EN.pdf https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/shared/Document... - It is important to highlight the persistent memory of the internet regarding the information used for the harassment. This information might stay for ever on the web and will be extremely difficult to erase completely. This point presents a great challenge for the respect of the right to be forgotten or for the enforcement of an appropriate and proportionate data retention policy. Here again the providers of such platforms are in a position to play a determinant role and their role could be driven by the respect of data protection rules which can, if properly implemented, mitigate the side effects produced by these three factors. Ignore this next bit - I'm wrong. I'm leaving it here because people have already responded to it. {RTBF arose because a man was a victim of harassment, where the harasser was creating very many websites across the world using fake details to do so with a variety of hosting services who had a variety of responses to the man's legal paperwork. At that point his only recourse was to go to the search engines and ask them to stop republishing (which is what the search result text snippets are doing) the harassment.} There are protections built into the RTBF for stuff that's in the public interest. EU and US have pretty different understanding of rights. US has strong freedom of speech, EU has strong right to privacy.
    - thrownaway2424 11y ago
      I don't know where you got that the RTBF came from harassment. The case was about a man who didn't want people to be able to find out that his house had been repossessed by creditors: " On 5 March 2010, Mr Costeja González, a Spanish national resident in Spain, lodged with the AEPD a complaint against La Vanguardia Ediciones SL, which publishes a daily newspaper with a large circulation, in particular in Catalonia (Spain) (‘La Vanguardia’), and against Google Spain and Google Inc. The complaint was based on the fact that, when an internet user entered Mr Costeja González’s name in the search engine of the Google group (‘Google Search’), he would obtain links to two pages of La Vanguardia’s newspaper, of 19 January and 9 March 1998 respectively, on which an announcement mentioning Mr Costeja González’s name appeared for a real-estate auction connected with attachment proceedings for the recovery of social security debts."
    - curt15 11y ago
      >RTBF arose because a man was a victim of harassment, where the harasser was creating very many websites across the world using fake details to do so with a variety of hosting services who had a variety of responses to the man's legal paperwork. No, RTBF was invented when Mario Costeja González decided that a perfectly factual archived news article concerning him (http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1998/01/19/pagina-23/33842001/pdf.html http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1998/01/19/pagina...) was inconvenient.
- ryanobjc 11y ago
  The ironic thing is the right to be forgotten is about public data, and that is what Google is arguing over. Perhaps there should be a global right to be forgotten, but it has to be implemented in a correct fashion. Opening loopholes for despotic regimes to be an editor over Google search results is not ok. As for not using the Google services, your comment on the face of it is a nice little narrative. Although ironically the data you share with Google has some of the best privacy protections, and you can delete it at any time you wish. Also it doesn't affect search results, so you are not really doing anything other than taking a moral stand, and limiting your access to services, some of which I personally find quite excellent and good.
codedokode 11y ago
Google already is censoring content at DMCA requests. And what about privacy? What would you do to remove some unpleasant information about yourself from the internet?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kodablah 11y ago
  What would you do to remove some unpleasant information about yourself from <some other publishing method>?
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Presumably, get a lawyer and sue them for defamation, likely at great personal expense. Up against the corporate lawyers of media empires (or search engines), your chances are pretty slim.
- curt15 11y ago
  With DMCA requests, the expression is deemed unlawful and the DMCA is used ultimately to take down the actual website. That is not the case here as the websites are allowed to continue publishing to the world without penalty.
- magicalist 11y ago
  > Google already is censoring content at DMCA requests Google not only alerts you to the fact they removed a link due to the DMCA, they even link to the entry in the Chilling Effects database that contains the actual DMCA takedown notice. The implementation of the "right to be forgotten" specifically disallows a notification of any kind.
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Almost everyone complaining about Right To Be Forgotten is almost completely unaware of it's actual requirements. It protects the privacy of private citizens, specifically if the information isn't relevant to the public interest. In fact, the EU (and I believe, the United Nations actually), has defined privacy as a "fundamental human right". And I'd definitely argue it's a country's first duty to protect the fundamental human rights of it's citizens.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Shouldn't this right extend to primary sources then?
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    Technically, it already does. You can already get a lawyer, find a way to try and sue someone for false (or private) information online, such as Hulk Hogan's recent suit against Gawker. But that requires lawyers and a lot of money. Privacy isn't just for the rich, this framework to delist information from search engines to protect people's privacy is straightforward and only requires working with a few companies.
    - Oletros 11y ago
      > Technically, it already does. No, it doesn't > You can already get a lawyer, find a way to try and sue someone for false (or private) information online The information is not false and is not private
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
  The EU has defined privacy, along with 117 other things, to be a fundamental human right. However the EU also contradicts that right with another right of "freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority". In the case of "right to be forgotten" EU law is holding that it is more important for an individual to be able to censor information about themselves than it is for other people to be able to share and receive information about that person. The courts also held, uselessly, that each invocation of the right to be forgotten must be individually balanced against that other right to convey and receive information, and that the burden of proof lies with the respondent charged with removing the information by the individual. In other words the right to be forgotten is effectively absolute, because no person or entity could afford to investigate and respond to each such claim, and is forced to simply accept them all as if they were uniformly meritorious. As a result, the public loses their right to receive and impart information, which is guaranteed by the EU Charter. So you can argue that "it's a country's first duty to protect the fundamental human rights of it's citizens" but in this instance the courts have erased one of those human rights. Also I wonder if you also believe in reciprocal enforcement of all the various rights guaranteed to Americans by their Constitution and by jurisprudence. You might not be aware, for example, that the most fundamental right of free speech in the US extends not only to individuals but to organizations and corporate entities. Are you prepared for American courts to start laying fines on European companies for infringing on the rights of free speech of American corporations?

NovaS1X 11y ago

It quite clearly states in the article that the laws apply to individuals requesting their personal data to be removed. This is not censorship. I agree there's a fine line that needs to be walked however I'm very sick and tired of the invasion of privacy that's become acceptable today and Google is an offender. I'v made my personal decisions to move away from as many Google services as possible and use pseudonyms as that's my choice and right, however, I do this because in Canada we don't have the same privacy protections that France does. I am well aware that by using Google Services I'm willingly giving up my information in exchange for their use and I've tailored my life around that assumption, however, not everyone is adept at this like I am and I think it's not morally alright to refuse the deletion of data requested by the individual who should rightfully own and control that data. I'm very, very, sick of the state of privacy today and I wish Google would've been fined significantly more. EDIT: for grammar

oh_sigh 11y ago
Shouldn't the individuals request that their data is removed from the primary source? If that happens, google will relatively quickly remove those results from their index.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Yes, people should do that. Here's some thinking from 2010 about right to be forgotten and EU data protection law: https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/shared/Documents/EDPS/Publications/Speeches/2010/10-06-07_Speech_Cyber-harassment_EN.pdf https://secure.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/shared/Document... - It is important to highlight the persistent memory of the internet regarding the information used for the harassment. This information might stay for ever on the web and will be extremely difficult to erase completely. This point presents a great challenge for the respect of the right to be forgotten or for the enforcement of an appropriate and proportionate data retention policy. Here again the providers of such platforms are in a position to play a determinant role and their role could be driven by the respect of data protection rules which can, if properly implemented, mitigate the side effects produced by these three factors. Ignore this next bit - I'm wrong. I'm leaving it here because people have already responded to it. {RTBF arose because a man was a victim of harassment, where the harasser was creating very many websites across the world using fake details to do so with a variety of hosting services who had a variety of responses to the man's legal paperwork. At that point his only recourse was to go to the search engines and ask them to stop republishing (which is what the search result text snippets are doing) the harassment.} There are protections built into the RTBF for stuff that's in the public interest. EU and US have pretty different understanding of rights. US has strong freedom of speech, EU has strong right to privacy.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    I don't know where you got that the RTBF came from harassment. The case was about a man who didn't want people to be able to find out that his house had been repossessed by creditors: " On 5 March 2010, Mr Costeja González, a Spanish national resident in Spain, lodged with the AEPD a complaint against La Vanguardia Ediciones SL, which publishes a daily newspaper with a large circulation, in particular in Catalonia (Spain) (‘La Vanguardia’), and against Google Spain and Google Inc. The complaint was based on the fact that, when an internet user entered Mr Costeja González’s name in the search engine of the Google group (‘Google Search’), he would obtain links to two pages of La Vanguardia’s newspaper, of 19 January and 9 March 1998 respectively, on which an announcement mentioning Mr Costeja González’s name appeared for a real-estate auction connected with attachment proceedings for the recovery of social security debts."
  - curt15 11y ago
    >RTBF arose because a man was a victim of harassment, where the harasser was creating very many websites across the world using fake details to do so with a variety of hosting services who had a variety of responses to the man's legal paperwork. No, RTBF was invented when Mario Costeja González decided that a perfectly factual archived news article concerning him (http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1998/01/19/pagina-23/33842001/pdf.html http://hemeroteca.lavanguardia.com/preview/1998/01/19/pagina...) was inconvenient.
ryanobjc 11y ago
The ironic thing is the right to be forgotten is about public data, and that is what Google is arguing over. Perhaps there should be a global right to be forgotten, but it has to be implemented in a correct fashion. Opening loopholes for despotic regimes to be an editor over Google search results is not ok. As for not using the Google services, your comment on the face of it is a nice little narrative. Although ironically the data you share with Google has some of the best privacy protections, and you can delete it at any time you wish. Also it doesn't affect search results, so you are not really doing anything other than taking a moral stand, and limiting your access to services, some of which I personally find quite excellent and good.

codedokode 11y ago

Google already is censoring content at DMCA requests. And what about privacy? What would you do to remove some unpleasant information about yourself from the internet?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kodablah 11y ago
What would you do to remove some unpleasant information about yourself from <some other publishing method>?
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Presumably, get a lawyer and sue them for defamation, likely at great personal expense. Up against the corporate lawyers of media empires (or search engines), your chances are pretty slim.
curt15 11y ago
With DMCA requests, the expression is deemed unlawful and the DMCA is used ultimately to take down the actual website. That is not the case here as the websites are allowed to continue publishing to the world without penalty.
magicalist 11y ago
> Google already is censoring content at DMCA requests Google not only alerts you to the fact they removed a link due to the DMCA, they even link to the entry in the Chilling Effects database that contains the actual DMCA takedown notice. The implementation of the "right to be forgotten" specifically disallows a notification of any kind.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

Almost everyone complaining about Right To Be Forgotten is almost completely unaware of it's actual requirements. It protects the privacy of private citizens, specifically if the information isn't relevant to the public interest. In fact, the EU (and I believe, the United Nations actually), has defined privacy as a "fundamental human right". And I'd definitely argue it's a country's first duty to protect the fundamental human rights of it's citizens.

oh_sigh 11y ago
Shouldn't this right extend to primary sources then?
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Technically, it already does. You can already get a lawyer, find a way to try and sue someone for false (or private) information online, such as Hulk Hogan's recent suit against Gawker. But that requires lawyers and a lot of money. Privacy isn't just for the rich, this framework to delist information from search engines to protect people's privacy is straightforward and only requires working with a few companies.
  - Oletros 11y ago
    > Technically, it already does. No, it doesn't > You can already get a lawyer, find a way to try and sue someone for false (or private) information online The information is not false and is not private
thrownaway2424 11y ago
The EU has defined privacy, along with 117 other things, to be a fundamental human right. However the EU also contradicts that right with another right of "freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority". In the case of "right to be forgotten" EU law is holding that it is more important for an individual to be able to censor information about themselves than it is for other people to be able to share and receive information about that person. The courts also held, uselessly, that each invocation of the right to be forgotten must be individually balanced against that other right to convey and receive information, and that the burden of proof lies with the respondent charged with removing the information by the individual. In other words the right to be forgotten is effectively absolute, because no person or entity could afford to investigate and respond to each such claim, and is forced to simply accept them all as if they were uniformly meritorious. As a result, the public loses their right to receive and impart information, which is guaranteed by the EU Charter. So you can argue that "it's a country's first duty to protect the fundamental human rights of it's citizens" but in this instance the courts have erased one of those human rights. Also I wonder if you also believe in reciprocal enforcement of all the various rights guaranteed to Americans by their Constitution and by jurisprudence. You might not be aware, for example, that the most fundamental right of free speech in the US extends not only to individuals but to organizations and corporate entities. Are you prepared for American courts to start laying fines on European companies for infringing on the rights of free speech of American corporations?