20 ms·

Wikipedia reveals Google 'forgotten' search links

112 points by cmsefton 12y ago

dzhiurgis 12y ago
Nice one. Perhaps they should start uploading DMCA protected content too? O wait, corporations using their legal leverage to remove content is perfectly ok.
- schoen 12y ago
  They do post the DMCA takedown requests that they comply with. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA I wouldn't assume that the Foundation or the Wikipedia community would think that the existence of the DMCA safe harbor is a good idea or that it's OK that people invoke it against Wikipedia. Certainly the Foundation is very actively involved in pushing back against takedowns; notice that that page "does not include the numerous requests that were found to be invalid or otherwise inappropriate where no content was removed" -- presumably through the hard work of Foundation lawyers resisting those takedowns.
  - davidgerard 12y ago
    Note also that whereas Google gets millions of DMCA takedowns, Wikimedia gets hundreds. That's because the editors - the volunteers who do all the actual work - are zealous (sometimes ridiculously so) about copyright. Wikimedia is the only web 2.0 site that gives a hoot about copyright.
- sp332 12y ago
  The right to be forgotten only exists in certain jurisdictions. It doesn't apply to American users on an American website.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    And Europeans can access the American Google site, making this whole mess pointless.
    - sp332 12y ago
      Well... yeah. It's the Internet :) It's not exactly pointless. After all, the original websites are still up and running, it's just more difficult to find this content with a search engine. Having an obscure list of links somewhere isn't going to make the information that much more dangerous.
falcor84 12y ago
"... the monkey had taken the photo, and was therefore the real copyright owner." The fact that non-human primates can now supposedly hold copyrights is my big take-away from this.
- zingermc 12y ago
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072081/quotes?item=qt0332024 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072081/quotes?item=qt0332024 Reminds me of Inspector Clouseau's encounter with an organ grinder. "I am a musician and the monkey is a businessman. He doesn't tell me what to play, and I don't tell him what to do with his money."
- ghaff 12y ago
  What totally floors me about this one is that I can barely but not really see an argument for public domain; i.e. no one took the photo. But would this be any different from using automatic triggers and the like? No, not really, if the monkey isn't a person. But, assuming for purposes of argument, that something neither a person nor a legal entity can somehow copyright a photo, I'm willing to bet that said monkey didn't release that photo under an appropriate license for Wikimedia to use. So if the monkey does own the copyright, Wikimedia still doesn't have the right to use it.
  - yincrash 12y ago
    Automatic triggers are still set by human beings, and the framing is still done by a human. Neither is the case in this situation. The monkey can't release the copyright if it does not have copyright (which it doesn't in the US since it's not a human, see prev. comment), so it is in the public domain.
  - breadbox 12y ago
    It differs from an automatic trigger in that the photographer is still the one exercising the decision to take a photograph. In the case under consideration, the monkeys stole the camera while the photographer was distracted. (Perhaps it's also worth noting that the monkeys weren't "taking selfies" per se; they were simply fiddling with the camera and noticed that pressing a button made a sound.) It's really a fascinating corner case. On the one hand, I agree that the photo almost has to be considered to be in the public domain. On the other hand, the photographer did exercise effort and choice in retrieving his camera, finding the one (hilariously adorable) image in the several that the monkeys inadvertently took, and making it available as a photograph. (Not to mention cropping and rotating the raw photo to properly frame the monkey. But one could ignore that by focusing on the original image, which isn't shown in the article but is floating around the web.) I suspect that if this exact situation had happened forty years, back when photos still had to be chemically developed, nobody would think for a second that the photographer didn't have full copyright ownership. He may not have exercised intent, but without his efforts there would be no photograph. It's only now, when the process of turning a camera's image into a viewable artifact has become relatively transparent, that it becomes less clear what the human photographer has contributed.
happyscrappy 12y ago
>While the links do not appear on Google.co.uk and other versions of the search engine created for specific EU countries, they do still appear on Google.com, which can be accessed in Europe. Even a great firewall of Europe would not make this kind of censorship work.
- jahnu 12y ago
  Many people in the EU, including myself, don't bother with the localised versions of Google since the results can be annoying. Having said that it really is frustrating not to be able to easily restrict a search all the EU ccTLDs.
  - weinzierl 12y ago
    Except for local search (shops and restaurants for me) I never use the German version of Google, it's so much worse. Sometimes I use the German version accidentally and it feels like Google is broken somehow. The most annoying thing is, that when you type google.com (instead of google.de for example) you still get the localized version. I don't keep Google cookies for long, so http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr is in my muscle memory.
MasterScrat 12y ago
Middle-clicking any external link on this page opens it... in the same tab. Are they actively trying to get rid of their visitors?!
- chippy 12y ago
  Opens in new tab for me.
- egeozcan 12y ago
  Probably they are trying to track clicks and do not have logic in place to simulate middle-clicks. Dear fellow web developers, please stop overriding essential browser functionality like scrolling, clicking on external links, right clicks and touch events. Especially on a web page with static content. Trust me, it will break.
  - ben0x539 12y ago
    More like dear browser vendors, stop letting web pages with static content do that.
  - coldpie 12y ago
    NoScript is a good solution while browser vendors are taking their time getting their shit together.
wubbfindel 12y ago
>>> The judges involved decided that citizens had the right to have links to "irrelevant" and outdated data erased from search engine results. I wonder, are Google doing this to make the 'forgotten' content "relevant" again, because of recent news articles covering the move. Then they can start linking to it again?
- troymc 12y ago
  Heh, this reads like a William Gibson novel.
- wmf 12y ago
  Google is removing tens of thousands of links; the media will cover only a tiny fraction of those.
  - wubbfindel 12y ago
    Good point. I just like the conspiracy angle...
DanBC 12y ago
There's clearly a niche in the market for reputation management. I know it exists, but perhaps something that can be used by the 90,000 people send requests to Google would generate a bit of income? The photograph example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Carstairs_In_Concert.jpg#filelinks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Carstairs_In_Concert.j... is odd. The photographer took the picture, and has released it to the public domain. There is clearly confusion between photographers and venues / bands about what the laws actually are, and what reasonable behaviour is. I'd be interested to know why the musician wants this very low quality photo taken down? Here's evidence of confusion over legal status of photographs: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2014/04/24/cant-photographers-musicians-get-along/ http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2014/04/24/cant-photographers...
- ianamartin 12y ago
  I would love to start a reputation management company. streisand.com maybe?
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  You don't have an automatic right to take pictures in private venues. If the ticket or signage states /photography is not allowed' then your copyright claim is invalid, and the material is not yours to give away. Rather a stingy policy for a venue to have, of course, but then nobody is forced to attend a concert or similar event if they don't like the conditions of attendance.
  - slucidi 12y ago
    You certainly don't lose copyright protection of a photo you took because you were told not to do so. You just risk being thrown out of the venue or other legal trouble.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      The musical performance is itself copyrighted, by definition. Reproducing part of it without permission is an infringement.
callesgg 12y ago
Most stuff will go away eventually, when sites die or are renewed. It just takes more time than what people like.
nraynaud 12y ago
Nice mob mentality, let's all pick up on the awkward guy who wants his brush with the law or crazy hairstyles removed from the internet so he can try to get job a after a long depression.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  The "right to be forgotten" law is for the rich and powerful to conceal their past bad behaviour from the public record; it's certainly not for the benefit of the likes of you and me.
xux 12y ago
I don't get it. Couldn't you already stop Google from indexing your page by using robot.txt?
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  your page Can't put a rebot.txt on Wikipedia.
- sp332 12y ago
  This is people asking Google to stop surfacing old content about them from other web sites, not their own web site.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Tossrock 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streissand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streissand_effect in action
laurent123456 12y ago
Has anyone started some work to find out the complete list of "forgotten" links? It shouldn't be hard to create a bot to parse the Wikipedia "People" categories, then run searches for each person on Google UK. If the article doesn't show up in the results, it means it's a forgotten link. Then all these links could be listed in a website. Maybe the simple fact that each "forgotten" link is automatically listed there will prevent people from using this right to be forgotten, and make the law obsolete.
- comex 12y ago
  I think Google is sending sites notice for all removed links, so the list linked from the article [1] should be complete for Wikimedia. Of course, that doesn't apply to the entire rest of the web.. [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Notices_received_from_search_engines https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Notices_received_from_s...

112 points by cmsefton 12y ago

Nice one. Perhaps they should start uploading DMCA protected content too? O wait, corporations using their legal leverage to remove content is perfectly ok.

schoen 12y ago
They do post the DMCA takedown requests that they comply with. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Category:DMCA I wouldn't assume that the Foundation or the Wikipedia community would think that the existence of the DMCA safe harbor is a good idea or that it's OK that people invoke it against Wikipedia. Certainly the Foundation is very actively involved in pushing back against takedowns; notice that that page "does not include the numerous requests that were found to be invalid or otherwise inappropriate where no content was removed" -- presumably through the hard work of Foundation lawyers resisting those takedowns.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  Note also that whereas Google gets millions of DMCA takedowns, Wikimedia gets hundreds. That's because the editors - the volunteers who do all the actual work - are zealous (sometimes ridiculously so) about copyright. Wikimedia is the only web 2.0 site that gives a hoot about copyright.
sp332 12y ago
The right to be forgotten only exists in certain jurisdictions. It doesn't apply to American users on an American website.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  And Europeans can access the American Google site, making this whole mess pointless.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Well... yeah. It's the Internet :) It's not exactly pointless. After all, the original websites are still up and running, it's just more difficult to find this content with a search engine. Having an obscure list of links somewhere isn't going to make the information that much more dangerous.

falcor84 12y ago

"... the monkey had taken the photo, and was therefore the real copyright owner." The fact that non-human primates can now supposedly hold copyrights is my big take-away from this.

zingermc 12y ago
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072081/quotes?item=qt0332024 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072081/quotes?item=qt0332024 Reminds me of Inspector Clouseau's encounter with an organ grinder. "I am a musician and the monkey is a businessman. He doesn't tell me what to play, and I don't tell him what to do with his money."
ghaff 12y ago
What totally floors me about this one is that I can barely but not really see an argument for public domain; i.e. no one took the photo. But would this be any different from using automatic triggers and the like? No, not really, if the monkey isn't a person. But, assuming for purposes of argument, that something neither a person nor a legal entity can somehow copyright a photo, I'm willing to bet that said monkey didn't release that photo under an appropriate license for Wikimedia to use. So if the monkey does own the copyright, Wikimedia still doesn't have the right to use it.
- yincrash 12y ago
  Automatic triggers are still set by human beings, and the framing is still done by a human. Neither is the case in this situation. The monkey can't release the copyright if it does not have copyright (which it doesn't in the US since it's not a human, see prev. comment), so it is in the public domain.
- breadbox 12y ago
  It differs from an automatic trigger in that the photographer is still the one exercising the decision to take a photograph. In the case under consideration, the monkeys stole the camera while the photographer was distracted. (Perhaps it's also worth noting that the monkeys weren't "taking selfies" per se; they were simply fiddling with the camera and noticed that pressing a button made a sound.) It's really a fascinating corner case. On the one hand, I agree that the photo almost has to be considered to be in the public domain. On the other hand, the photographer did exercise effort and choice in retrieving his camera, finding the one (hilariously adorable) image in the several that the monkeys inadvertently took, and making it available as a photograph. (Not to mention cropping and rotating the raw photo to properly frame the monkey. But one could ignore that by focusing on the original image, which isn't shown in the article but is floating around the web.) I suspect that if this exact situation had happened forty years, back when photos still had to be chemically developed, nobody would think for a second that the photographer didn't have full copyright ownership. He may not have exercised intent, but without his efforts there would be no photograph. It's only now, when the process of turning a camera's image into a viewable artifact has become relatively transparent, that it becomes less clear what the human photographer has contributed.

happyscrappy 12y ago

>While the links do not appear on Google.co.uk and other versions of the search engine created for specific EU countries, they do still appear on Google.com, which can be accessed in Europe. Even a great firewall of Europe would not make this kind of censorship work.

jahnu 12y ago
Many people in the EU, including myself, don't bother with the localised versions of Google since the results can be annoying. Having said that it really is frustrating not to be able to easily restrict a search all the EU ccTLDs.
- weinzierl 12y ago
  Except for local search (shops and restaurants for me) I never use the German version of Google, it's so much worse. Sometimes I use the German version accidentally and it feels like Google is broken somehow. The most annoying thing is, that when you type google.com (instead of google.de for example) you still get the localized version. I don't keep Google cookies for long, so http://www.google.com/ncr http://www.google.com/ncr is in my muscle memory.

MasterScrat 12y ago

Middle-clicking any external link on this page opens it... in the same tab. Are they actively trying to get rid of their visitors?!

chippy 12y ago
Opens in new tab for me.
egeozcan 12y ago
Probably they are trying to track clicks and do not have logic in place to simulate middle-clicks. Dear fellow web developers, please stop overriding essential browser functionality like scrolling, clicking on external links, right clicks and touch events. Especially on a web page with static content. Trust me, it will break.
- ben0x539 12y ago
  More like dear browser vendors, stop letting web pages with static content do that.
- coldpie 12y ago
  NoScript is a good solution while browser vendors are taking their time getting their shit together.

wubbfindel 12y ago

>>> The judges involved decided that citizens had the right to have links to "irrelevant" and outdated data erased from search engine results. I wonder, are Google doing this to make the 'forgotten' content "relevant" again, because of recent news articles covering the move. Then they can start linking to it again?

troymc 12y ago
Heh, this reads like a William Gibson novel.
wmf 12y ago
Google is removing tens of thousands of links; the media will cover only a tiny fraction of those.
- wubbfindel 12y ago
  Good point. I just like the conspiracy angle...

DanBC 12y ago

There's clearly a niche in the market for reputation management. I know it exists, but perhaps something that can be used by the 90,000 people send requests to Google would generate a bit of income? The photograph example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Carstairs_In_Concert.jpg#filelinks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Carstairs_In_Concert.j... is odd. The photographer took the picture, and has released it to the public domain. There is clearly confusion between photographers and venues / bands about what the laws actually are, and what reasonable behaviour is. I'd be interested to know why the musician wants this very low quality photo taken down? Here's evidence of confusion over legal status of photographs: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2014/04/24/cant-photographers-musicians-get-along/ http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2014/04/24/cant-photographers...

ianamartin 12y ago
I would love to start a reputation management company. streisand.com maybe?
anigbrowl 12y ago
You don't have an automatic right to take pictures in private venues. If the ticket or signage states /photography is not allowed' then your copyright claim is invalid, and the material is not yours to give away. Rather a stingy policy for a venue to have, of course, but then nobody is forced to attend a concert or similar event if they don't like the conditions of attendance.
- slucidi 12y ago
  You certainly don't lose copyright protection of a photo you took because you were told not to do so. You just risk being thrown out of the venue or other legal trouble.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    The musical performance is itself copyrighted, by definition. Reproducing part of it without permission is an infringement.

callesgg 12y ago

Most stuff will go away eventually, when sites die or are renewed. It just takes more time than what people like.

nraynaud 12y ago

Nice mob mentality, let's all pick up on the awkward guy who wants his brush with the law or crazy hairstyles removed from the internet so he can try to get job a after a long depression.

davidgerard 12y ago
The "right to be forgotten" law is for the rich and powerful to conceal their past bad behaviour from the public record; it's certainly not for the benefit of the likes of you and me.

xux 12y ago

I don't get it. Couldn't you already stop Google from indexing your page by using robot.txt?

Vik1ng 12y ago
your page Can't put a rebot.txt on Wikipedia.
sp332 12y ago
This is people asking Google to stop surfacing old content about them from other web sites, not their own web site.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Tossrock 12y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streissand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streissand_effect in action

laurent123456 12y ago

Has anyone started some work to find out the complete list of "forgotten" links? It shouldn't be hard to create a bot to parse the Wikipedia "People" categories, then run searches for each person on Google UK. If the article doesn't show up in the results, it means it's a forgotten link. Then all these links could be listed in a website. Maybe the simple fact that each "forgotten" link is automatically listed there will prevent people from using this right to be forgotten, and make the law obsolete.

comex 12y ago
I think Google is sending sites notice for all removed links, so the list linked from the article [1] should be complete for Wikimedia. Of course, that doesn't apply to the entire rest of the web.. [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Notices_received_from_search_engines https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Notices_received_from_s...