9 ms·

'I'm Happy,' Says Man Whose Case Changed Europe's Rules For Google

24 points by RougeFemme 12y ago

if_by_whisky 12y ago
Seems like a dangerous precedent.
- e40 12y ago
  I disagree. I have a friend that had some crazy person badmouthing him on various usenet groups. It really bummed him out because when you googled his name, you'd see all those things first. Replace "usenet" with "blog" and you could have the same problem today.
  - proexploit 12y ago
    What if your friend has actually done something wrong though, for example, scammed multiple clients out of money? Giving them the ability to remove that information means future clients can't get a fair warning. I'm not knowledgeable about the concept as a whole to have a strong opinion yet but it seems like there's plenty of times I think something should remain public even if a person doesn't want it. If someone posts something false, we have legal systems to handle that complaint. It's not perfect but this seems more dangerous.
  - throwaway420 12y ago
    It almost seems backwards until you stop and think about it, but the existence of these kinds of laws actually makes this problem worse for most people. There is no way for anybody without significant means to continuously monitor the internet for negative search results and then continuously sick lawyers on publishers, search engines, blogs, websites, and forums to get this stuff removed. And even with unlimited means, there really is no way to put some facts back in the bottle once it's been unveiled. The existence of this kind of law makes it much more likely that most people will automatically believe anything negative that they read on the internet about you because then otherwise they'd assume that you'd be able to get lawyers to remove it. Right now, today, there's a hint of doubt about the veracity of anything on the internet, and that's actually a good thing for people who have been unfairly attacked. But if this law becomes widespread and sets a very strong precedent, then people will automatically tend to believe anything that they read about online. This is a net loss not only for freedom, but for most people who have negative search results.
    - gress 12y ago
      > But if this law becomes widespread and sets a very strong precedent, then people will automatically tend to believe anything that they read about online. How is this true?
  - spinlock 12y ago
    replace 'usenet' with 'search engine' and .... your point makes no sense. Your friend should have the slanderous comments removed from Usenet's servers (and mirrors). Then, when Google Search crawls them again, they won't show up in _search_ results. If, on the other hand, you just stop search engines from showing the results _that are on Usenet_, you haven't fixed anything, you've just buried your head in the sand.
- genericuser 12y ago
  I agree, as it seems like it allows people to basically curate their google results so that only positive things appear about them. I agree there should be circumstances where content should be removed from indexes but if the content publisher is not required to remove it, and it is legal content, why should google or other search engine providers have to stop indexing it? What I believe would be a functional system would be that a court order for the content publisher to take down the content should also require google to quit indexing the content, so cached versions aren't able to be found and in case the publisher doesn't comply. But that having a ruling that google has to act as a gatekeeper to legal and already public content about an individual because they feel it is not relevant any longer does seem like a dangerous precedent.
  - joshlegs 12y ago
    Really, this is an age-old problem. Journalists have had to deal with this for years. The general consensus was that if it's true, tough crap. The difference between journalism and google is that anybody can google someone. Journalists generally had to spend a lot of time digging up someone's past. The "problem" is just how efficient Google (and other web crawlers) have been at aggregating data. And I'm kind of on the fence about that
  - thirdsun 12y ago
    Exactly, it's actually quite similar to those infamous porn dns filters. If there is a plausible reason why not remove the source? The ruling as I understand it just alters the map while the city is still there.
- fleitz 12y ago
  First, it's not a precedent, Google filters search results to comply with the law in pretty much every jurisdiction, in Europe they are already filtering Maps to comply with local individual privacy law. In the US these are frequently DMCA requests, and in Europe frequently anti-hate requests. In Europe they simply have found a more expansive view of privacy than that of the US. If there's a precedent here it's a pretty minor one.
  - spinlock 12y ago
    The case was about google displaying search results of data that others had posted online. It was not about taking down data that google was hosting (eg DMCA). This is a case of shooting the messenger and leaving the person sending the messages alone.
  - genericuser 12y ago
    Your argument about this being a precedent goes counter to what the article itself says. I honestly have no idea whether you are correct in your judgement about whether this is a precedent but it seems like this is a complaint about the article more than the post you replied to. "According to The Guardian, the case will be used as a precedent in more than 200 cases pending in Spain's court system; in many of them, plaintiffs are asking for links to be deleted."
eames4 12y ago
This is a dangerous precedent. Google should (and probably will) appeal, and I really hope they win. Who knows, the "right to be forgotten" could turn into a "fight to be remembered" ala Trotsky.
- jrockway 12y ago
  I believe this is the final level of appeals, and the only option for changing the ruling is to make new law.
gress 12y ago
Seems like a great precedent. Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people, and they should be held responsible for the consequences.
- EvanKelly 12y ago
  Are you opposed to the idea of search engines in general?
  - gress 12y ago
    Why would you ask that?
    - VikingCoder 12y ago
      Because your original comment hints that you don't know how a search engine works. "Mario Costeja Gonzalez" is a sequence of three words to Google, when you search for that. It's not like Google found a unique human profile record corresponding to Mr. Gonzalez, and then showed you all of the web pages corresponding to that unique person. No. It's just words to Google. Now, "George Clooney" is much more likely to be a person with an actual record someplace inside Google... But not "Mario Costeja Gonzalez".
      - gress 12y ago
        I know exactly how a search engine works, so your explanation is irrelevant. I also know that Google is a system operated by humans who are responsible for its effects. If you operate a machine and it harms people, you are responsible. The fact that the harm was done by an automatic process does not change this.
        VikingCoder 12y ago
        > I know exactly how a search engine works, so your explanation is irrelevant. No, you don't. > Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people It does not create profiles of people. It creates indexes of words. When you look at those words, YOU conclude that it's a profile of a person. CLEARLY, if Google is designed to operate on profiles of people, then it should handle that data carefully, etc. But CLEARLY if Google is designed to operate on indexes of words, then it's nowhere near as clear what should happen if you happen to search for the name of a person. You're now demanding that Google LEARN the difference between words and the names of people, and that it behave differently for the two. So, yes, EvanKelly asked an insightful question: Are you opposed to the idea of indexes of words in general? To which you must honestly answer YES. Because you apparently do not believe that it can be considered JUST an index of words. You want this extra layer of understanding. The telephone company is not responsible for you getting death threats. The post office is not responsible for stopping you from getting a pipe bomb. Making information like this available on the web IS THE PROBLEM. Indexing words should be innocent. It's like you want to sue the owners of a building because a bullet ricocheted off of it and killed your dog. Go after the jerk with the gun, okay?
axanoeychron 12y ago
This is a good thing. If something terrible is posted online and it is true but it hurts nobody if you take it down, it seems like common courtesy to not repeat it. You have to weigh the public interest versus peace of mind for the individual. It's not clear cut and dry. There are things you choose not to say in real life, even if the are true. Just because something is on the internet does not preclude you from that courtesy and respect. Technical reasons (such as caches) can be used as an excuse to act respectably. You do not go around telling colleagues at work about what other colleagues have done. What would you have to gain? Imagine if you had relations with someone and it was recorded online. The allegations might be true but who has more right for that information to be left up there for all to find? Should you be allowed to post all you like about others, disregarding the potential effects on that person? Or should you be thoughtful about what is in the public interest? Now imagine a site that records who had relations with whom. There is no maliciousness in this one: it's more of a public record or encyclopedia. Do you have the right to opt out of it? To go further with my example. Imagine having a sexually transmitted infectious disease. Is the answer the same?
- fleitz 12y ago
  Yes, if you had an STD 16 years ago and have dealt with it, it would seem reasonable to have that taken down, or moved off the front page. It may even be reasonable to have medical records taken down carte blanche.
- EvanKelly 12y ago
  I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does. If this man had problems with his debts being online, he should have contacted/sued the sites which displayed this data. This is like suing TV Guide because there's a show on tv that is offensive to you.
  - ronaldx 12y ago
    > I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does. I also think it's wrong that they didn't sanction the original publisher, which makes far more sense as a solution. However, Google should be subject to the laws of Data Protection - a search engine is, in some sense, a data repository that may handle personal data. It is unlike TV Guide in this respect.
newman8r 12y ago
I wonder how this would impact an organization like archive.org
- pietro 12y ago
  There are probably hundreds of reasons why archive.org would be illegal in Europe. It's wonderful that they are based in a country that respects freedom of speech.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    That's funny most of HN seems pretty disappointed that it's AT&T's free speech right to hand over your (technically AT&T's) phone records to the gov't (or anyone else they feel like).
    - je_bailey 12y ago
      AT&T does not have a free speech right to expose information that was not publicly available. Where as, if AT&T was providing information that you had agreed to make available, or was providing information that was already publicly available then they would have, arguably, the right to provide that information again.
- codecondo 12y ago
  I wonder where you got the inspiration for that concern.
  - newman8r 12y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745547
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  archive.org is perfectly happy with censorship, and does this retroactively. Its right there in their FAQ: Archive, does respect robots.txt instructions, and even does so retroactively
happyscrappy 12y ago
Europeans won't see the real search results and if that is how they want it fine, they have no jurisdiction anywhere else.
regoldste 12y ago
"Gonzalez had his home repossessed 16 years ago. If you Google his name, you can still see newspaper stories about his debts. 'It hurts my reputation,' he says in Spanish. 'My debts are long paid, but those links were the first thing you'd see.'" Congratulations, Mr. Gonzalez; now when people Google your name, your reputation won't only be defined by your foreclosure and past financial troubles--which is now discussed in 10,000+ articles (good luck with those takedown requests!)--but also for being the jerk who killed the internet for Europe. You have to appreciate the irony...
- jessaustin 12y ago
  I'm envisioning another lawsuit...
  - genericuser 12y ago
    A precedent for which the case becomes invisible to the public because all articles about it had to be hidden because of the precedent itself.... (I realize the precedent wouldn't allow for that because an important legal case like this would remain relevant, and therefore not fall into the category which it allows for removal of, but its funnier to me to imagine that it could apply to itself.)
- cpa 12y ago
  Killed the internet in Europe? Come on. Free speech in the US and in Europe are two different things. But neither is better, it's a matter of culture. This decision is not backwards and it's not killing free speech as I know it in France (and most of the EU). Now, on the technicalities of the decision, there's probably to be said.
  - VikingCoder 12y ago
    It is absolutely backwards. It may be more cost effective for Google to stop serving search results in Spain. Before you call me ridiculous, how much do you think Google makes off of those 47 million Spaniards each year, and how much do you think it will cost Google if those 47 million Spaniards or a large portion of them start demanding the company remove information about them? If the cost to comply is greater than the profit, what would you do?
txutxu 12y ago
Everybody talking here about "recorded sex" etc, should know better about what "marabunta" is and how it's used in certain places and sexual groups. I'm totally with anybody which wants to remove any (own) sex-related recording. With or without tropical drugs. People is terrible.
nsxwolf 12y ago
So - how long does it take to crawl the entire web yourself with a modern PC and broadband connection? Is it feasible to have your own uncensored search engine (even if it isn't frequently updated)?
- gress 12y ago
  Do you seriously believe that Google is somehow unbiased?
  - mehta 12y ago
    but it's not about Google only. It is about bing, yahoo and ddg too!
- VikingCoder 12y ago
  First step, you'd need a big enough hard drive to store the results. Or Punch Cards. http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/
spinlock 12y ago
I would say this ruling is Orwellian but even Big Brother had the common sense to actually change the primary sources.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Indeed. And Europe wonders why they have trouble innovating.
sparkzilla 12y ago
The Spanish fellow had a problem with a government agency that would not remove his records. So instead of dealing with that government abuse he sues a private company that reports using government data. Then the government says the private company has to stop displaying the information. So the government creates the problem and then hides it. Worse, the main beneficiaries of this law will not be ordinary people, it'll be criminals, politicians and powerful people who now have a way to hide their wrongdoings.

24 points by RougeFemme 12y ago

if_by_whisky 12y ago

Seems like a dangerous precedent.

e40 12y ago
I disagree. I have a friend that had some crazy person badmouthing him on various usenet groups. It really bummed him out because when you googled his name, you'd see all those things first. Replace "usenet" with "blog" and you could have the same problem today.
- proexploit 12y ago
  What if your friend has actually done something wrong though, for example, scammed multiple clients out of money? Giving them the ability to remove that information means future clients can't get a fair warning. I'm not knowledgeable about the concept as a whole to have a strong opinion yet but it seems like there's plenty of times I think something should remain public even if a person doesn't want it. If someone posts something false, we have legal systems to handle that complaint. It's not perfect but this seems more dangerous.
- throwaway420 12y ago
  It almost seems backwards until you stop and think about it, but the existence of these kinds of laws actually makes this problem worse for most people. There is no way for anybody without significant means to continuously monitor the internet for negative search results and then continuously sick lawyers on publishers, search engines, blogs, websites, and forums to get this stuff removed. And even with unlimited means, there really is no way to put some facts back in the bottle once it's been unveiled. The existence of this kind of law makes it much more likely that most people will automatically believe anything negative that they read on the internet about you because then otherwise they'd assume that you'd be able to get lawyers to remove it. Right now, today, there's a hint of doubt about the veracity of anything on the internet, and that's actually a good thing for people who have been unfairly attacked. But if this law becomes widespread and sets a very strong precedent, then people will automatically tend to believe anything that they read about online. This is a net loss not only for freedom, but for most people who have negative search results.
  - gress 12y ago
    > But if this law becomes widespread and sets a very strong precedent, then people will automatically tend to believe anything that they read about online. How is this true?
- spinlock 12y ago
  replace 'usenet' with 'search engine' and .... your point makes no sense. Your friend should have the slanderous comments removed from Usenet's servers (and mirrors). Then, when Google Search crawls them again, they won't show up in _search_ results. If, on the other hand, you just stop search engines from showing the results _that are on Usenet_, you haven't fixed anything, you've just buried your head in the sand.
genericuser 12y ago
I agree, as it seems like it allows people to basically curate their google results so that only positive things appear about them. I agree there should be circumstances where content should be removed from indexes but if the content publisher is not required to remove it, and it is legal content, why should google or other search engine providers have to stop indexing it? What I believe would be a functional system would be that a court order for the content publisher to take down the content should also require google to quit indexing the content, so cached versions aren't able to be found and in case the publisher doesn't comply. But that having a ruling that google has to act as a gatekeeper to legal and already public content about an individual because they feel it is not relevant any longer does seem like a dangerous precedent.
- joshlegs 12y ago
  Really, this is an age-old problem. Journalists have had to deal with this for years. The general consensus was that if it's true, tough crap. The difference between journalism and google is that anybody can google someone. Journalists generally had to spend a lot of time digging up someone's past. The "problem" is just how efficient Google (and other web crawlers) have been at aggregating data. And I'm kind of on the fence about that
- thirdsun 12y ago
  Exactly, it's actually quite similar to those infamous porn dns filters. If there is a plausible reason why not remove the source? The ruling as I understand it just alters the map while the city is still there.
fleitz 12y ago
First, it's not a precedent, Google filters search results to comply with the law in pretty much every jurisdiction, in Europe they are already filtering Maps to comply with local individual privacy law. In the US these are frequently DMCA requests, and in Europe frequently anti-hate requests. In Europe they simply have found a more expansive view of privacy than that of the US. If there's a precedent here it's a pretty minor one.
- spinlock 12y ago
  The case was about google displaying search results of data that others had posted online. It was not about taking down data that google was hosting (eg DMCA). This is a case of shooting the messenger and leaving the person sending the messages alone.
- genericuser 12y ago
  Your argument about this being a precedent goes counter to what the article itself says. I honestly have no idea whether you are correct in your judgement about whether this is a precedent but it seems like this is a complaint about the article more than the post you replied to. "According to The Guardian, the case will be used as a precedent in more than 200 cases pending in Spain's court system; in many of them, plaintiffs are asking for links to be deleted."

eames4 12y ago

This is a dangerous precedent. Google should (and probably will) appeal, and I really hope they win. Who knows, the "right to be forgotten" could turn into a "fight to be remembered" ala Trotsky.

jrockway 12y ago
I believe this is the final level of appeals, and the only option for changing the ruling is to make new law.

gress 12y ago

Seems like a great precedent. Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people, and they should be held responsible for the consequences.

EvanKelly 12y ago
Are you opposed to the idea of search engines in general?
- gress 12y ago
  Why would you ask that?
  - VikingCoder 12y ago
    Because your original comment hints that you don't know how a search engine works. "Mario Costeja Gonzalez" is a sequence of three words to Google, when you search for that. It's not like Google found a unique human profile record corresponding to Mr. Gonzalez, and then showed you all of the web pages corresponding to that unique person. No. It's just words to Google. Now, "George Clooney" is much more likely to be a person with an actual record someplace inside Google... But not "Mario Costeja Gonzalez".
    - gress 12y ago
      I know exactly how a search engine works, so your explanation is irrelevant. I also know that Google is a system operated by humans who are responsible for its effects. If you operate a machine and it harms people, you are responsible. The fact that the harm was done by an automatic process does not change this.
      - VikingCoder 12y ago
        > I know exactly how a search engine works, so your explanation is irrelevant. No, you don't. > Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people It does not create profiles of people. It creates indexes of words. When you look at those words, YOU conclude that it's a profile of a person. CLEARLY, if Google is designed to operate on profiles of people, then it should handle that data carefully, etc. But CLEARLY if Google is designed to operate on indexes of words, then it's nowhere near as clear what should happen if you happen to search for the name of a person. You're now demanding that Google LEARN the difference between words and the names of people, and that it behave differently for the two. So, yes, EvanKelly asked an insightful question: Are you opposed to the idea of indexes of words in general? To which you must honestly answer YES. Because you apparently do not believe that it can be considered JUST an index of words. You want this extra layer of understanding. The telephone company is not responsible for you getting death threats. The post office is not responsible for stopping you from getting a pipe bomb. Making information like this available on the web IS THE PROBLEM. Indexing words should be innocent. It's like you want to sue the owners of a building because a bullet ricocheted off of it and killed your dog. Go after the jerk with the gun, okay?

axanoeychron 12y ago

This is a good thing. If something terrible is posted online and it is true but it hurts nobody if you take it down, it seems like common courtesy to not repeat it. You have to weigh the public interest versus peace of mind for the individual. It's not clear cut and dry. There are things you choose not to say in real life, even if the are true. Just because something is on the internet does not preclude you from that courtesy and respect. Technical reasons (such as caches) can be used as an excuse to act respectably. You do not go around telling colleagues at work about what other colleagues have done. What would you have to gain? Imagine if you had relations with someone and it was recorded online. The allegations might be true but who has more right for that information to be left up there for all to find? Should you be allowed to post all you like about others, disregarding the potential effects on that person? Or should you be thoughtful about what is in the public interest? Now imagine a site that records who had relations with whom. There is no maliciousness in this one: it's more of a public record or encyclopedia. Do you have the right to opt out of it? To go further with my example. Imagine having a sexually transmitted infectious disease. Is the answer the same?

fleitz 12y ago
Yes, if you had an STD 16 years ago and have dealt with it, it would seem reasonable to have that taken down, or moved off the front page. It may even be reasonable to have medical records taken down carte blanche.
EvanKelly 12y ago
I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does. If this man had problems with his debts being online, he should have contacted/sued the sites which displayed this data. This is like suing TV Guide because there's a show on tv that is offensive to you.
- ronaldx 12y ago
  > I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does. I also think it's wrong that they didn't sanction the original publisher, which makes far more sense as a solution. However, Google should be subject to the laws of Data Protection - a search engine is, in some sense, a data repository that may handle personal data. It is unlike TV Guide in this respect.

newman8r 12y ago

I wonder how this would impact an organization like archive.org

pietro 12y ago
There are probably hundreds of reasons why archive.org would be illegal in Europe. It's wonderful that they are based in a country that respects freedom of speech.
- fleitz 12y ago
  That's funny most of HN seems pretty disappointed that it's AT&T's free speech right to hand over your (technically AT&T's) phone records to the gov't (or anyone else they feel like).
  - je_bailey 12y ago
    AT&T does not have a free speech right to expose information that was not publicly available. Where as, if AT&T was providing information that you had agreed to make available, or was providing information that was already publicly available then they would have, arguably, the right to provide that information again.
codecondo 12y ago
I wonder where you got the inspiration for that concern.
- newman8r 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745547
rasz_pl 12y ago
archive.org is perfectly happy with censorship, and does this retroactively. Its right there in their FAQ: Archive, does respect robots.txt instructions, and even does so retroactively

happyscrappy 12y ago

Europeans won't see the real search results and if that is how they want it fine, they have no jurisdiction anywhere else.

regoldste 12y ago

"Gonzalez had his home repossessed 16 years ago. If you Google his name, you can still see newspaper stories about his debts. 'It hurts my reputation,' he says in Spanish. 'My debts are long paid, but those links were the first thing you'd see.'" Congratulations, Mr. Gonzalez; now when people Google your name, your reputation won't only be defined by your foreclosure and past financial troubles--which is now discussed in 10,000+ articles (good luck with those takedown requests!)--but also for being the jerk who killed the internet for Europe. You have to appreciate the irony...

jessaustin 12y ago
I'm envisioning another lawsuit...
- genericuser 12y ago
  A precedent for which the case becomes invisible to the public because all articles about it had to be hidden because of the precedent itself.... (I realize the precedent wouldn't allow for that because an important legal case like this would remain relevant, and therefore not fall into the category which it allows for removal of, but its funnier to me to imagine that it could apply to itself.)
cpa 12y ago
Killed the internet in Europe? Come on. Free speech in the US and in Europe are two different things. But neither is better, it's a matter of culture. This decision is not backwards and it's not killing free speech as I know it in France (and most of the EU). Now, on the technicalities of the decision, there's probably to be said.
- VikingCoder 12y ago
  It is absolutely backwards. It may be more cost effective for Google to stop serving search results in Spain. Before you call me ridiculous, how much do you think Google makes off of those 47 million Spaniards each year, and how much do you think it will cost Google if those 47 million Spaniards or a large portion of them start demanding the company remove information about them? If the cost to comply is greater than the profit, what would you do?

txutxu 12y ago

Everybody talking here about "recorded sex" etc, should know better about what "marabunta" is and how it's used in certain places and sexual groups. I'm totally with anybody which wants to remove any (own) sex-related recording. With or without tropical drugs. People is terrible.

nsxwolf 12y ago

So - how long does it take to crawl the entire web yourself with a modern PC and broadband connection? Is it feasible to have your own uncensored search engine (even if it isn't frequently updated)?

gress 12y ago
Do you seriously believe that Google is somehow unbiased?
- mehta 12y ago
  but it's not about Google only. It is about bing, yahoo and ddg too!
VikingCoder 12y ago
First step, you'd need a big enough hard drive to store the results. Or Punch Cards. http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/63/

spinlock 12y ago

I would say this ruling is Orwellian but even Big Brother had the common sense to actually change the primary sources.

happyscrappy 12y ago
Indeed. And Europe wonders why they have trouble innovating.

sparkzilla 12y ago

The Spanish fellow had a problem with a government agency that would not remove his records. So instead of dealing with that government abuse he sues a private company that reports using government data. Then the government says the private company has to stop displaying the information. So the government creates the problem and then hides it. Worse, the main beneficiaries of this law will not be ordinary people, it'll be criminals, politicians and powerful people who now have a way to hide their wrongdoings.