Google looses right to be forgotten case in EU

[Silurian]

Is this good or bad.

From the Guardian

EU court backs 'right to be forgotten': Google must amend results on request
Individuals have right to control their data and can ask search engines to remove results, says European court...


...
Legal experts said the ruling could give the go-ahead to deletion requests of material including photographs of embarrassing teenage episodes and even insults on social media websites and could lead to a rethink in the way they handle links to content on the web.

http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...o-be-forgotten-eu-court-google-search-results


From USA Today

The ruling is "groundbreaking," said Trevor Hughes, president and CEO of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

"Individuals now have the ability to essentially go in with a virtual black marker and redact their names," Hughes said. "That changes the game of both search results and the information economy."
...

...
"If, following a search made on the basis of a person's name, the list of results displays a link to a Web page which contains information on the person in question, that data subject may approach the operator directly and, where the operator does not grant his request, bring the matter before the competent authorities in order to obtain, under certain conditions, the removal of that link from the list of results," the judges said in their ruling.

"An Internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on Web pages published by third parties," the judges added.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...gle-search-european-court-of-justice/9027645/

 

[Lillefix]

Is this good or bad.

That was my question!!!

But I suspect it's both.

 

[Antilogic]

This is a really good thing for people who make dumb mistakes as kids and don't want them permanently stored online (or better yet, for kids to take down material their parents may have posted of them). There could be a downside if it's used to cover up things that should be public knowledge, maybe if a politician scrubs something out before running for higher office. I don't know, I can't come up with too many examples here.

But this could be a problem in the future:

Data protection lawyers said the ruling meant that Google could no longer be regarded legally as a "neutral intermediary"

(from the first linked article in the OP)

 

[BvBPL]

The death knell for free speech is sounded by the bells of privacy.

This ruling allows parties to ask Google to make unavailable via search engines internet pages critical of those parties. Massive problems exist with this. Say a business has some negative press on-line like rats were found in a restaurant or something. The restaurant now has the ability to make the news stories and health department issuances unavailable from search engines.

 

[Flying Pig]

There's nothing to preclude a public interest condition - indeed, if you need to convince a court of the merits of taking the stuff down, then it's obviously going to be more difficult for (say) corporations, politicians and celebrities to make it happen than for otherwise forgettable people.

 

[Kozmos]

I am not up to date with that specific part of the IT, but I think the implementation of such would be rather difficult especially if there is a large volume of requests and one can imagine there would be.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If, following a search made on the basis of a person's name, the list of results displays a link to a Web page which contains information on the person in question, that data subject may approach the operator directly and, where the operator does not grant his request, bring the matter before the competent authorities in order to obtain, under certain conditions, the removal of that link from the list of results

Bolded part seems highly significant. Without further details of what those conditions are then this discussion is essentially moot.

 

[Silurian]

The death knell for free speech is sounded by the bells of privacy.

This ruling allows parties to ask Google to make unavailable via search engines internet pages critical of those parties. Massive problems exist with this. Say a business has some negative press on-line like rats were found in a restaurant or something. The restaurant now has the ability to make the news stories and health department issuances unavailable from search engines.

I am not sure if this would cover a business.

But if it does Google would have to decide if it was still relevent.
A rat twenty years ago and none since may not be relevent so Google would have to take down the link.





Court of Justice of the European Union
PRESS RELEASE No 70/14

An internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties

Thus, if, following a search made on the basis of a person’s name, the list of results displays a link to a web page which contains information on the person in question, that data subject may approach the operator directly and, where the operator does not grant his request, bring the matter before the competent authorities in order to obtain, under certain conditions, the removal of that link from the list of results
.....


...Finally, in response to the question whether the directive enables the data subject to request that links to web pages be removed from such a list of results on the grounds that he wishes the information appearing on those pages relating to him personally to be ‘forgotten’ after a certain time, the Court holds that, if it is found, following a request by the data subject, that the inclusion of those links in the list is, at this point in time, incompatible with the directive, the links and information in the list of results must be erased. The Court observes in this regard that even initially lawful processing of accurate data may, in the course of time, become incompatible with the directive where, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, the data appear to be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.
.....

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-05/cp140070en.pdf

 

[BvBPL]

...if you need to convince a court of the merits of taking the stuff down, then it's obviously going to be more difficult for (say) corporations, politicians and celebrities to make it happen than for otherwise forgettable people.

Because a court needs to rule on the merits of such a take down, it will be easier for those parties to obtain a take down because those parties, broadly, are moneyed interests capable of hiring lawyers who can advocate for them in court.

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'm quite sure that Google and other search engines are the actual death to liberty, and not privacy or something.

 

[Kozmos]

Now that I think about it, Google is supposedly at fault for listing links on the contents of other web pages. That is dumb. It's like suing a private detective for digging up information that you murdered a hooker and got off on a technicality. No privacy for anyone. Everyone is accountable.

 

[Zelig]

I am not up to date with that specific part of the IT, but I think the implementation of such would be rather difficult especially if there is a large volume of requests and one can imagine there would be.

Presumably it will work roughly as well and with the same procedures as DMCA notices on AmericaGoogle work now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_Effects

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm...

Google may be a huge internet site, but why would anyone trying to erase stuff actually only view google as the issue?

In other words: i don't care if google (which seems pretty rotten anyway) is made to erase some info (which, sadly, will be taken advantage of and won't be about largely about good anyway), but what is the point of that if the same info will be circulated still and just not be in google hits?

And i surely hope this is not a nice first step to prepare for court orders to not use information (eg the nice beyonce reptilian pic ) in any site on the internet. Cause the latter indeed is a very serious- and negative- development.

 

[metatron]

There could be a downside if it's used to cover up things that should be public knowledge,

No it's not.
I've already developed throbbing veins on my temples in the last 20 minutes sifting through the unsuffarable, oblivious drivel Anglosphere journalists are producing on the subject, like they do on anything "European".

The information subject to this has to be - among other things - "irrelevant" to the public at large.
That's the point.

And you still have to take on google over it on a case by case basis.

The death knell for free speech is sounded by the bells of privacy.

No it's not.

And you'd do very well to shed your bias and appreciate the constitutional principles of other free and democratic countries.
It's not like nobody told you.

And it's not like them Europeans were trailing you on freedom of the press:

Spoiler :

Edit: Damnit. Slovenia not white. I would have loved that.

This ruling allows parties to ask Google to make unavailable via search engines internet pages critical of those parties. Massive problems exist with this. Say a business has some negative press on-line like rats were found in a restaurant or something. The restaurant now has the ability to make the news stories and health department issuances unavailable from search engines.

Businesses don't have human dignity (or the Rights of Personality - or whichever angle you wanna play - hilariously they all work).
Cause they're not people.

Because a court needs to rule on the merits of such a take down, it will be easier for those parties to obtain a take down because those parties, broadly, are moneyed interests capable of hiring lawyers who can advocate for them in court.

In most of Europe you have to be a lot less wealthy to succeed in court.
We had extensive threads on that matter, as well.

 

[The_J]

Google may be a huge internet site, but why would anyone trying to erase stuff actually only view google as the issue?

That's actually the point.
It tackles the wrong...entity.
If the piece of information is the problem, then the piece of information has to go. In that case the newspaper article.
If it's not the problem, then not.
Google is "just" in between, making info available where info is.

 

[Verbose]

Actual persons being able to remove stuff about themselves on request seems OK by me. Legal persons, companies and corporations and the like, being able to do the same, allowing them to restrict information about their activities, seems less advisable...

 

[Winner]

I don't see what could be wrong about my right to ask for removal of personal stuff I previously shared online.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's actually the point.
It tackles the wrong...entity.
If the piece of information is the problem, then the piece of information has to go. In that case the newspaper article.
If it's not the problem, then not.
Google is "just" in between, making info available where info is.

I'm not convinced. I think there's a strong case to be made that certain entities - the police or the security services, for example - need to be more able to access information than ordinary people. That's one of the reasons why they can obtain warrants to tap your telephones or follow you around, while ordinary people cannot. However, taking it off search means that a casual search of the internet won't find it, so people idly Googling your name or (say) employers checking up on you will be none the wiser, while not removing the chance for it to come up again if it becomes in the public interest. So I think it's a good compromise which avoids making the law into a permit for censorship.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm not convinced. I think there's a strong case to be made that certain entities - the police or the security services, for example - need to be more able to access information than ordinary people. That's one of the reasons why they can obtain warrants to tap your telephones or follow you around, while ordinary people cannot. However, taking it off search means that a casual search of the internet won't find it, so people idly Googling your name or (say) employers checking up on you will be none the wiser, while not removing the chance for it to come up again if it becomes in the public interest. So I think it's a good compromise which avoids making the law into a permit for censorship.

A permit/precedent for web censorship is about all that enabled this court decision to happen, cause other than that (as was noted so many times already) you won't erase stuff about you by just not allowing google to have it in some searches. The internet is not just google.

 

[BvBPL]

A permit/precedent for web censorship is about all that enabled this court decision to happen, cause other than that (as was noted so many times already) you won't erase stuff about you by just not allowing google to have it in some searches. The internet is not just google.

That's right, however there are several reasons why search engine results need to be handled with kid gloves. (By the way, the court's ruling applies to all search engine results, not just Google.)

The first is that search engines make the Web usable and any rule affecting search engines affects the whole of the Web. Imagine having a multivolume reference series and you want to look up a fact covered by the material. You go to the index to easily find where that fact is. Search engines are the index to the Web. The internet would still exist without them, but it would be a very different and less useful thing.

Second, this ruling creates a cause of action against the search engine to delete the search data, not the poster of the information himself. The search engine has very little interest in maintaining individual search information prepared by third parties. As such, the search engine will typically just roll over and remove the search information because it gains very little by maintaining the search information. The search engine will likely rarely fight any such request, even if that request falls outside the rulings of the court.

Thirdly, this may not just be about the internet as a whole but also about searches inside individual websites. CNN's website search function is provided by Google. Google may be obliged to remove search information not just from Google.com, but also from CNN.com

Removing search information is de facto censorship because the search engines are a key part of making the Web accessible to people.