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> The law isn't about squelching free speech, it's just trying to keep this information from being so easily available. You're just mincing words here. There a

> The law isn't about squelching free speech, it's just trying to keep this information from being so easily available. You're just mincing words here. There are profound speech arguments to be made when someone is coerced or threatened for publishing _facts_. It is the same nanny-state crap that Europe invokes when it criminalizes offending people, and they have an army of people like you to jump on their bandwagon. The ruling is technologically illiterate. It fails to appreciate the growing ability for anyone to access and index public information as time goes on. It fails to appreciate its jurisdiction and effectiveness. It fails to make sound rational justification that separates the role of a newspaper from a news aggregator. Most important of all, it gives the government an enormously broad -- and practically limitless -- ability to remove the expression and dissemination of information based on purely subjective and even temporal characteristics. Europe's freedom of expression laws are a joke with endless carve-outs for "public stability" and "offense" which will only become increasingly useful tools to regulate and censor legitimate public discourse. Too bad for you, these laws won't work and when they fail it will be embarrassing. In the short term, enjoy the further rot of economic growth in the region due to compliance costs of this and other ridiculous judgments.

krbbltr 12y ago
You sound bitter. Why do you get so worked up over 'nanny-state crap' that's going on on the other side of the world? Business interests in the EU and don't like to put in the extra effort? Or do you just enjoy that mode of righteous indignation? I find it amusing that – even taking the Google shills out of the picture –, most of the 'debate' around this topic is along the lines of Americans preaching to Europeans about how they're 'doing it wrong', often with emotionally charged language, just like your comment here. Ever thought that Europeans just might have some slightly different values than you do?
- mike_hearn 12y ago
  I live in Europe, was born in Britain, and I think this is a bad ruling that makes the EU look like a bad joke. Laws that can only be enforced by building a massive system of internet censorship akin to China's are indeed "doing it wrong". Happy now?
  - krbbltr 12y ago
    You're entitled to your opinion, but a single comment on a US-centric discussion forum does not convince me that it's a majority opinion as far as Europeans go. My observations so far indicate the opposite.
    - Fuxy 12y ago
      As a European myself the request of the citizen for the removal of the content was legitimate you can't have past problems looming over you your entire life and certain things are just too personal and shouldn't be so easy to find to begin with. I don't want a potential google search to reveal I got my home repossessed for instance. The employer could take advantage of this by offering you a lower wage since you're desperate it's more likely you will take it or not hire you at all. However the way the court choose to handle this was completely wrong. This shouldn't be handled at search engine level but at the publishing website level. The ability of anybody requesting content to be removed from the internet should be very limited in the types of things they can have removed and rigorously monitored by a court of law. Plus there should be a private database containing the Names of the people who had content removed and what was removed. That would discourage political reasons since the log of their activity exists even if the content doesn't.
      - mike_hearn 12y ago
        What about the right of the employer to know who they're about to employ? If someone claims to be an expert in a certain area which you need but are not yourself an expert in, it would be very useful to be able to search their name and discover that things they wrote about the topic have been discredited. It'd be even more useful if you could find unflattering opinions about them written by their peers: perhaps it avoids a very long and messy employment of someone who will then be difficult to fire, but who doesn't know what they're doing, potentially crippling your business. The guy you're looking at would probably love to make the criticism of his work unfindable whilst simultaneously leaving behind the bits that make him look good. But why should he have that right? Employers have needs too. For what it's worth I quite agree that the existing framework for getting things removed from the internet (by going to the source) works well enough, but that's not what the court has now created.
- ewillbefull 12y ago
  You going to have to come up with a better defense; the "it's just a different culture" and "you wouldn't understand" and "our values are different" does NOT insulate you from criticism. Your 'balance' is poorly reasoned, and should be openly mocked and despised by anyone in western society. This ruling affects everybody because of its balkanization effect on the Internet. Other than that, I just feel bad for Europeans who throw fundamental human rights away in favor of populism.

krbbltr 12y ago

You sound bitter. Why do you get so worked up over 'nanny-state crap' that's going on on the other side of the world? Business interests in the EU and don't like to put in the extra effort? Or do you just enjoy that mode of righteous indignation? I find it amusing that – even taking the Google shills out of the picture –, most of the 'debate' around this topic is along the lines of Americans preaching to Europeans about how they're 'doing it wrong', often with emotionally charged language, just like your comment here. Ever thought that Europeans just might have some slightly different values than you do?

mike_hearn 12y ago
I live in Europe, was born in Britain, and I think this is a bad ruling that makes the EU look like a bad joke. Laws that can only be enforced by building a massive system of internet censorship akin to China's are indeed "doing it wrong". Happy now?
- krbbltr 12y ago
  You're entitled to your opinion, but a single comment on a US-centric discussion forum does not convince me that it's a majority opinion as far as Europeans go. My observations so far indicate the opposite.
  - Fuxy 12y ago
    As a European myself the request of the citizen for the removal of the content was legitimate you can't have past problems looming over you your entire life and certain things are just too personal and shouldn't be so easy to find to begin with. I don't want a potential google search to reveal I got my home repossessed for instance. The employer could take advantage of this by offering you a lower wage since you're desperate it's more likely you will take it or not hire you at all. However the way the court choose to handle this was completely wrong. This shouldn't be handled at search engine level but at the publishing website level. The ability of anybody requesting content to be removed from the internet should be very limited in the types of things they can have removed and rigorously monitored by a court of law. Plus there should be a private database containing the Names of the people who had content removed and what was removed. That would discourage political reasons since the log of their activity exists even if the content doesn't.
    - mike_hearn 12y ago
      What about the right of the employer to know who they're about to employ? If someone claims to be an expert in a certain area which you need but are not yourself an expert in, it would be very useful to be able to search their name and discover that things they wrote about the topic have been discredited. It'd be even more useful if you could find unflattering opinions about them written by their peers: perhaps it avoids a very long and messy employment of someone who will then be difficult to fire, but who doesn't know what they're doing, potentially crippling your business. The guy you're looking at would probably love to make the criticism of his work unfindable whilst simultaneously leaving behind the bits that make him look good. But why should he have that right? Employers have needs too. For what it's worth I quite agree that the existing framework for getting things removed from the internet (by going to the source) works well enough, but that's not what the court has now created.
ewillbefull 12y ago
You going to have to come up with a better defense; the "it's just a different culture" and "you wouldn't understand" and "our values are different" does NOT insulate you from criticism. Your 'balance' is poorly reasoned, and should be openly mocked and despised by anyone in western society. This ruling affects everybody because of its balkanization effect on the Internet. Other than that, I just feel bad for Europeans who throw fundamental human rights away in favor of populism.