EU Google ruling

[Aulus Agerius]

Surprise surprise




The cure is worse than the disease.

And watch as each of these requests is rejected by google, litigated, and in each case rejected as the national courts of the relevant member state decide that access to such information (i.e. what the ECJ calls the "list" generated by a google search, including the information sought to be removed) is in the public interest. ECJ's decision is the beginning of the "right to be forgotten" - it'll take years and many more decisions to work out the contours of that right, and significant power will remain with the regular courts of the member states to determine what information you can and cannot require to be forgotten.

That's without even thinking about the potential permutations of the issue - The ECJ case concerned a straight name search - so you google someone and (perhaps) you are presented with a list of all their past misdeeds. But what if you're searching for that person specifically to check up on them? If you search a name and "convictions" for example. At the core of the ECJ's decision was the assertion the information the claimant objected to was "irrelevant" - but you can hardly say that if the information is the sort of information the search was designed to find.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

"More Google 'forget' requests emerge after EU ruling"

The BBC has learned that more than half of requests sent to Google from UK individuals involved convicted criminals.

A business has also sought for links to negative reviews on a forum to be removed.

More requests came to light on Friday. They included:

A man who tried to kill members of his own family who has asked for links to a news article to be taken down
A celebrity's child who wanted links to news articles about a criminal conviction removed
A suspended university lecturer who asked for the removal of links to articles mentioning the disciplinary action
A convicted cyberstalker who, after being cited in an article about cyberstalking law, wants links to it taken down
An actor who has asked for links to articles about an affair he had with a teenager taken down
A man convicted of running a tax scam who wants all links referencing the event removed​

...

The cure is worse than the disease.

Indeed

 

[Darat]

Surprise surprise




The cure is worse than the disease.

From my currently limited understanding none of those would be "protected" by this ruling.

 

[rjh01]

I am sure over time something rational will emerge and the world will be a better place for it.

 

[Aepervius]

From my currently limited understanding none of those would be "protected" by this ruling.

From my limited understand probably, except those which went thru a conviction, then were releqsed because they finished their prison time. That could probably fall under the same stretching it.

For the politician ? No way.

 

[krelnik]

I blogged about this today on my Skeptical Software Tools Blog: “Right to be Forgotten” may affect skeptic outreach

Skeptic websites crucially depend on this for outreach, which is why I often mention SEO on this blog. By building critical articles that appear in Google under the names of quacks, pseudoscientists and other con artists, skeptics can intercept customers before they are taken. This is also precisely why Wikipedia is also so important to skeptic outreach – it nearly always ranks very highly in Google.

But the right to be forgotten could interfere with that form of outreach. Quacks and charlatans in Europe could already be filing “right to be forgotten” requests, and key skeptic content could start to evaporate from Google. Any skeptic who has criticized an EU-based charlatan online should be wary of this happening.

I conclude:

Google notifies webmasters when it receives requests that affect them. But in order to do that Google must know who you are! And so, if you are responsible for any sort of web content which criticizes EU-based persons or companies, you should ensure that your site is registered in both Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

I think it is vitally important that skeptics pay close attention to this issue as it affects our ability to criticize those in Europe. Of course I give lots of details and links in the post.