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This asks Google to be the deciders of what information should be free. It's an incredibly bad decision by EU lawmakers, and one that no one - not even Google -
by themartorana 12y ago
This asks Google to be the deciders of what information should be free. It's an incredibly bad decision by EU lawmakers, and one that no one - not even Google - wants.
If Google removes public information, it's a loss for everyone. If they don't, they're immediately open to a legal battle.
This is just a horribly rash, poorly thought out law that has little to do with actual privacy, and more to pushing the problem on to Google and their ilk.
- tkinom 12y agoWhat Iran/China/Russian unable to force Google to do, EU is forcing Google to do it now.
- MisterWebz 12y agoYou forgot to include North-Korea in your list of scary sounding countries.
- adsr 12y agoHow so? It's not requests from the state that are discussed but from individuals. It also seems to be in line with Eric Schmidt's comment about how teens should have the right for a new online identity when they grow up. I really wish people could accept different views here and add arguments to support their point.
- Goronmon 12y agoHow so? It's not requests from the state that are discussed but from individuals. How is it any different when individuals work for the state? Couldn't government entities just submit complaints on behalf of their employees? Hell, why wouldn't the government just have employees have to sign a form allowing for the government to send out blanket complaints to Google every month to remove information related to them or their work?
- adsr 12y agoIt's different in principle. I'm not saying that this will be easy to manage in practice, that's not the point I was trying to make. There seems to be some clear cut cases however, like bullying and character assassinations where perhaps law enforcement is involved. I think the question it self is important, and it will be interesting to see how this works out in practice.
- Symmetry 12y agoCensorship is censorship, whether initiated by bureaucrats or citizens.
- adsr 12y agoIn this case it's removal of your own data, so it's self-censorship if anything.
- judk 12y agoWhat does it mean when Eric Schmidt says someone "should" have a right to do something, when his company works against it every day?
- ForHackernews 12y agoGoogle are already the deciders of what information should be easily accessible. They like to pretend that those decisions are somehow unimpeachable because they're made by an algorithm instead of directly by a human, but the algorithm is still written and adjusted by humans.
- bowlofpetunias 12y agoYeah, right. The law defines the right, it doesn't force Google to do anything. Google can take every request to court. The qualification "horribly rash, poorly thought" out applies to the services Google creates ("huh, privacy, what privacy?"), and the way it responds to request to comply with basic privacy ("fuck you, fuck you and fuck you, oh, oops, we lost in court, let's hack something together to prevent losing $$$"). Besides, Google already decides. There's nothing even remotely objective about Google's search results, and Google is eager to pro-actively censor it's services for anything ranging from the copyright mafia to American puritanism. The EU lawmakers didn't force Google to be a bunch of assholes. They just defined basic civil rights.
- JustTrolling 12y agoI'd love to see an example of Google censoring for "American puritanism."
- bowlofpetunias 12y agoYouTube.