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Congratulations to the EU courts. Through great skill and determination they have managed to construct the world's first self-Streisanding privacy law.

mtrimpe 12y ago
Really? I'm pretty sure major media outlets will pretty soon run out of opportunities to name and shame a select few individuals... assuming this article itself will not also be stricken from Google search results of course. Additionally; it seems EU courts are often making sensible and nuanced decisions which in many cases dramatically improve the quality of life of those unfairly affected. It does comes at some expense to enormous and massively profitable companies, but that's typically the kind of tradeoff the EU is better at making (depending on your definition of better of course.)
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  There's no real noticeable expense to this to these companies. The only real expense is to the people who will be unable to find specific information online in a format they expect. Thankfully, lots of other folks are reposting all the removed information to make it even more visible than it was before. Ironically, most of the 'unfairly affected' looking to have their previous misdeeds and criminal behavior forgotten will only be drawing international attention to it.
  - bitserf 12y ago
    The problem is that this doesn't scale. Sure, people are sharing the information now, because it's part of a current story, but 2 years from now? And the party affected isn't an organisation with the reach of the Times?
  - mtrimpe 12y ago
    The audience that is looking at these 'deleted Google listings' probably has very little overlap with the influential decision-makers in these peoples lives who Google his/her name before making said decision though.
Luc 12y ago
> Since May, when the European high court made its initial decision on the right to be forgotten, Google has received roughly 140,000 privacy requests connected to more than 500,000 links, according to the company’s top lawyer. So far, the search giant has approved around half of the requests. One in 70,000 is a rather low Streisand concentration...
- rbehrends 12y ago
  Yes. The Streisand effect doesn't really scale.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    If you confined the search to newspapers, you could construct a live list of article availability vs territory for all the major search engines. I'm actually quite surprised that there isn't one already.
    - rbehrends 12y ago
      You could, but the inherent limitation of the Streisand effect is that both media and public attention are finite resources. You can focus media/public attention on at best a few individuals and have it be effective. Have tens of thousands, and the effect is too diluted to be meaningful.
nraynaud 12y ago
It's clear that the Time is way louder in bullying individuals in Europe that did something in the past, than bullying the CIA on torture happening right now. But it's not self-streisanding, the Times actively wants to talk about that, they have an purpose, and it's not certainly not about a greater good, human rights and freedom, otherwise Guantanamo would be on the front page everyday. They are deliberately picking up on individuals.
4684499 12y ago
I think if one can't get relevant serach results through search engines, then the law served its purpose. Other concerned parties can't really do any harm to those who wanted to be forgotten. I mean, do you still remember any of those people's name? Even if you do, what can you do to them? The thing is, Google removes results only on its European sites, like google.co.uk, people can still get results from google.com. Plus, news sites keep recording those removal requests (informed by Google), which could turn people to use those news sites as alternative search engines. I think these made the law pointless. Edit: spellings.
jamesbrownuhh 12y ago
That's more down to Google's policy of eagerly contacting media organisations who are affected by this measure. Google know full well that if they contact the BBC or the NYT or Reuters or whoever, and say "oh, we had to censor some search results involving your site", that those companies will immediately write articles howling about the fact, thus negating the intent of the legal precedent, and seeding useful talking points to get people criticising it all. After all, how dare people have privacy. In at least one case, the article being covered up was not due to a request by the subject of the article but from one of a few hundred commenters beneath the article. (Which could be an interesting attack vector, in the right circumstances.)

mtrimpe 12y ago

Really? I'm pretty sure major media outlets will pretty soon run out of opportunities to name and shame a select few individuals... assuming this article itself will not also be stricken from Google search results of course. Additionally; it seems EU courts are often making sensible and nuanced decisions which in many cases dramatically improve the quality of life of those unfairly affected. It does comes at some expense to enormous and massively profitable companies, but that's typically the kind of tradeoff the EU is better at making (depending on your definition of better of course.)

JohnTHaller 12y ago
There's no real noticeable expense to this to these companies. The only real expense is to the people who will be unable to find specific information online in a format they expect. Thankfully, lots of other folks are reposting all the removed information to make it even more visible than it was before. Ironically, most of the 'unfairly affected' looking to have their previous misdeeds and criminal behavior forgotten will only be drawing international attention to it.
- bitserf 12y ago
  The problem is that this doesn't scale. Sure, people are sharing the information now, because it's part of a current story, but 2 years from now? And the party affected isn't an organisation with the reach of the Times?
- mtrimpe 12y ago
  The audience that is looking at these 'deleted Google listings' probably has very little overlap with the influential decision-makers in these peoples lives who Google his/her name before making said decision though.

Luc 12y ago

> Since May, when the European high court made its initial decision on the right to be forgotten, Google has received roughly 140,000 privacy requests connected to more than 500,000 links, according to the company’s top lawyer. So far, the search giant has approved around half of the requests. One in 70,000 is a rather low Streisand concentration...

rbehrends 12y ago
Yes. The Streisand effect doesn't really scale.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  If you confined the search to newspapers, you could construct a live list of article availability vs territory for all the major search engines. I'm actually quite surprised that there isn't one already.
  - rbehrends 12y ago
    You could, but the inherent limitation of the Streisand effect is that both media and public attention are finite resources. You can focus media/public attention on at best a few individuals and have it be effective. Have tens of thousands, and the effect is too diluted to be meaningful.

nraynaud 12y ago

It's clear that the Time is way louder in bullying individuals in Europe that did something in the past, than bullying the CIA on torture happening right now. But it's not self-streisanding, the Times actively wants to talk about that, they have an purpose, and it's not certainly not about a greater good, human rights and freedom, otherwise Guantanamo would be on the front page everyday. They are deliberately picking up on individuals.

4684499 12y ago

I think if one can't get relevant serach results through search engines, then the law served its purpose. Other concerned parties can't really do any harm to those who wanted to be forgotten. I mean, do you still remember any of those people's name? Even if you do, what can you do to them? The thing is, Google removes results only on its European sites, like google.co.uk, people can still get results from google.com. Plus, news sites keep recording those removal requests (informed by Google), which could turn people to use those news sites as alternative search engines. I think these made the law pointless. Edit: spellings.

jamesbrownuhh 12y ago

That's more down to Google's policy of eagerly contacting media organisations who are affected by this measure. Google know full well that if they contact the BBC or the NYT or Reuters or whoever, and say "oh, we had to censor some search results involving your site", that those companies will immediately write articles howling about the fact, thus negating the intent of the legal precedent, and seeding useful talking points to get people criticising it all. After all, how dare people have privacy. In at least one case, the article being covered up was not due to a request by the subject of the article but from one of a few hundred commenters beneath the article. (Which could be an interesting attack vector, in the right circumstances.)