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EU backs 'right to be forgotten' in landmark Google privacy case

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syllogism

Member
I'm all for protecting privacy but this seems to make no sense at all. The information.. isn't private? and the courts have ruled that that part is legal.
The information is still private in the sense that a newspaper would not be legally justified in reprinting the original article; the original justification is no longer valid. And again, just because information can be accessed does not mean it's not private and sensitive.
 

syllogism

Member
Logistically, that could get complicated quick - but I can understand it a bit better now. Considering the nature of these requests, I don't think the actual de-indexing would be difficult, I think the difficult part would just be about ruling when a person should or should not be protected by this measure - which I imagine is outside of Google's mandate.

I wonder what happens though if you become internet famous - when people are tweeting and blogging your name every few minutes.
Your name isn't what is being protected here. It's from having private sensitive information being processed in a way that it is linked to your name.
 
This really doesn't seem technologically feasible. I mean, once it's on the net, it's out there, you really can't delete or remove something.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
The only reason the initial publication was legally justified was because it took place upon the order of the Ministry of Labour and Social affairs and had a legally justified intent. It's not because the story was true, as they were processing and publicizing sensitive private information.

Also just because something is legally obtainable does not mean mass media is free to publish it. Your privacy is still protected to some degree even if private individuals can technically access it by requesting it from some government entity.

Thank you for this post.

I think it should be noted that not all personal information is subject to the same levels of protection, if at all.

Your name is typically not protected and can be quoted ad nauseam on the internet, but other information such as medical records are carefully protected. What is protected and to which degree is also something that can greatly vary across the EU (ie: in some countries personal finances may be publicly available, but that would be a huge no-no in others).

Outlets such as newspapers may be able to publish such information in some fashion, but depending on the data, there's a chance that you could't even keep a private archive, let alone allow the rest of the public to consult it. This is where Google finds itself in shaky grounds, as the way it scrubs the internet, it basically indexes everything and then makes it readily available, which is not really comparable with keeping huge stacks of newspapers as a library would do.

I think the lists of sexual offenders could provide a good simile for most American gaffers: European newspapers will, of course, publish new stories about sexual assaults and provide the names and pictures of child rapists once they are found guilty, but as far as I know, it'd be illegal to create a public archive designed to check the personal wherabouts of those people. Similarly, children enjoy a greater degree of protection than adults and you cannot publish certain information about minors without their parent's permission. Then, there's also the issue of certain information such as passports driving licenses and some court orders, which can be copied by the user for identification and administrative purposes, but are not meant to be republished elsewhere in any public fashion like Google does in its search results.

Basically, what the European Union Court of Justice is saying is that member states are free to order Google to take down personal information from their search results that falls under their respective privacy/data processing laws. You may not be able to expunge your name and birthday from Google's search results, but if by any chance Google indexed some protected, private information that you don't want to be public (such as your medical history or a scan of your driver's license), you can absolutely ask them (or force them if it comes to it) to remove it. This also applies to libelous articles etc.

This is an amazing ruling for the consumers.
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Your name isn't what is being protected here. It's from having private sensitive information being processed in a way that it is linked to your name.

Yeah, I don't mean people just tweeting your name, but something like "did you hear about this guy Bob who had the worst divorce ever?"

"Top ten worst divorces, with an ending you wouldn't believe"

"Why divorces are good for society"

All articles that have Bob's name and information about his divorce on them.

Although I don't know how legally private a divorce is, I hope you get what I'm getting at.
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Thank you for this post.

I think it should be noted that not all personal information is subject to the same levels of protection, if at all.

Your name is typically not protected and can be quoted ad nauseam on the internet, but other information such as medical records are carefully protected. What is protected and to which degree is also something that can greatly vary across the EU (ie: in some countries personal finances may be publicly available, but that would be a huge no-no in others).

Outlets such as newspapers may be able to publish such information in some fashion, but depending on the data, there's a chance that you could't even keep a private archive, let alone allow the rest of the public to consult it. This is where Google finds itself in shaky grounds, as the way it scrubs the internet, it basically indexes everything and then makes it readily available, which is not really comparable with keeping huge stacks of newspapers as a library would do.

I think the lists of sexual offenders could provide a good simile for most American gaffers: European newspapers will, of course, publish new stories about sexual assaults and provide the names and pictures of child rapists once they are found guilty, but as far as I know, it'd be illegal to create a public archive designed to check the personal wherabouts of those people. Similarly, children enjoy a greater degree of protection than adults and you cannot publish certain information about minors without their parent's permission. Then, there's also the issue of certain information such as passports driving licenses and some court orders, which can be copied by the user for identification purposes, but are not meant to be republished elsewhere in public fashion.

Basically, what the European Union Court of Justice is saying is that member states are free to order Google to take down personal information from their search results that falls under their respective privacy laws. You may not be able to expunge your name and birthday from Google's search results, but if by any chance Google indexed some protected, private information that you don't want to be public (such as your medical history), you can absolutely ask them (or force them) to remove it. This also applies to libelous articles etc.

This is an amazing ruling.

You couldn't force people to remove your medical records before? I imagine you could force a website to.
 
...but a newspaper's reporting on a public auction related to public proceedings is neither private nor sensitive. There is (or used to be) a very bright line distinction between private and public information. What the court seems to be suggesting is that publicly available information can become private merely due to the passage of time, which is reinforced by the clumsy "right to be forgotten". That's one of the many things I'm struggling with.
 

peakish

Member
As I gather from my limited knowledge about law and reading the ruling, the issue is that Google makes it easy to serve up what could basically be an entire register of a private life through searching a name. Should it be as easy as googling for some person to find out everything about him or her that has ever been put online of it?

It seems like a difficult problem to figure out where the line should be drawn between a search operator being able to give out relevant results, but still not indexing an entire private life and putting it up for anyone to view at moments notice. Knowing about this difficulty I'll still side with protecting personal privacy while these issues are being worked through.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
You couldn't force people to remove your medical records before? I imagine you could force a website to.

Easily. But Google's excuse is that they are just indexing the personal information other people put there.

The driver's license/passport example is probably easier to understand. You can scan and print it for a job application, but there's no freaking way a website should be allowed to share it with other people, including Google's image search.
 
Thank you for this post.

I think it should be noted that not all personal information is subject to the same levels of protection, if at all.

Your name is typically not protected and can be quoted ad nauseam on the internet, but other information such as medical records are carefully protected. What is protected and to which degree is also something that can greatly vary across the EU (ie: in some countries personal finances may be publicly available, but that would be a huge no-no in others).

Outlets such as newspapers may be able to publish such information in some fashion, but depending on the data, there's a chance that you could't even keep a private archive, let alone allow the rest of the public to consult it. This is where Google finds itself in shaky grounds, as the way it scrubs the internet, it basically indexes everything and then makes it readily available, which is not really comparable with keeping huge stacks of newspapers as a library would do.

I think the lists of sexual offenders could provide a good simile for most American gaffers: European newspapers will, of course, publish new stories about sexual assaults and provide the names and pictures of child rapists once they are found guilty, but as far as I know, it'd be illegal to create a public archive designed to check the personal wherabouts of those people. Similarly, children enjoy a greater degree of protection than adults and you cannot publish certain information about minors without their parent's permission. Then, there's also the issue of certain information such as passports driving licenses and some court orders, which can be copied by the user for identification and administrative purposes, but are not meant to be republished elsewhere in any public fashion like Google does in its search results.

Basically, what the European Union Court of Justice is saying is that member states are free to order Google to take down personal information from their search results that falls under their respective privacy laws. You may not be able to expunge your name and birthday from Google's search results, but if by any chance Google indexed some protected, private information that you don't want to be public (such as your medical history or a scan of your driver's license), you can absolutely ask them (or force them) to remove it. This also applies to libelous articles etc.

This is an amazing ruling for the consumers.
I have trouble believing that medical records/scan of personal ID were not protected prior to this ruling. The guy's property was foreclosed, I'm not sure where that falls in on sphere of privacy protection but it is a continent away from medical records, in my opinion. Maybe not, what if the financial troubles were from a medical condition and then this condition might come up in an inquiry about the financial troubles. I see a dark gray but I'm a little cynical about this ruling.
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Easily. But Google's excuse is that they are just indexing the personal information other people put there.
Which is... well, true. Regardless, Google already has services for helping you remove content like your SSN from Google searches if they persist after whatever website was hosting them was taken down. The only thing particularly different about this service that I can see is for information that isn't actually illegal - stuff that the courts can't force newspapers or bloggers to remove.
 

xandaca

Member
Appreciate the intention, but this seems incredibly likely to be abused. If it comes down to courts to decide what stays on and what gets deleted, it's just going to be an easy way for the rich and their armies of lawyers to control the flow of information.
 

syllogism

Member
Yeah, I don't mean people just tweeting your name, but something like "did you hear about this guy Bob who had the worst divorce ever?"

"Top ten worst divorces, with an ending you wouldn't believe"

"Why divorces are good for society"

All articles that have Bob's name and information about his divorce on them.

Although I don't know how legally private a divorce is, I hope you get what I'm getting at.
It's unlikely that would constitute "processing" under the act. It could infringe privacy under some other law, but not data protection act. If you imply that Google would upon request have to remove those from search results, I think it's unlikely for that the data protection act would deem that information personal data that is protected from processing. It definitely is not considered sensitive personal data, as that is a more specifically defined category under the act.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Appreciate the intention, but this seems incredibly likely to be abused. If it comes down to courts to decide what stays on and what gets deleted, it's just going to be an easy way for the rich and their armies of lawyers to control the flow of information.

The good thing about privacy laws is that they are usually extremely well laid out and easy to enforce when it comes to rulings. Hell, the EUCJ's ruling means that many complains won't even have to reach the high courts, as they will cleanly fall on the laps of each state's data protection agencies.

In any case, the potential for abuse is tiny compared to the protection it brings to the average consumer.
 

old

Member
From the BBC:

It is Mr Gonzalez's right, the EU says, for that information to be confined to history - or at least, a history only findable by the very dedicated. The information will still be online, just not indexed by the search engine.

The decision has wide-reaching implications.

The EU has been pushing heavily for a new law on data privacy - of which "right to be forgotten" is a key component - since it proposed guidelines in January 2012.

It argues that old, inaccurate or even just irrelevant data should be taken out of search results if the person involved requests it.

Eventually, the EU hopes the "right to be forgotten" principle will extend further. Those drunken pictures from your university days? The EU thinks you should have the right to demand that Facebook (or your social network of choice) gets rid of them completely - as well as any bit of data on you it may hold.

If the full proposals are passed, firms that do not comply with the law could be fined around 1% of their global revenues.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27394751

I wonder how this will affect Neogaf. Will neogaf now have to offer EU posters a way to delete their account and all of their posts?
 
I look forward to reading the rest of this thread, because absolutely nothing about this ruling and the arguments in its defense make sense. This is a dangerous ruling.
 

Acorn

Member
Appreciate the intention, but this seems incredibly likely to be abused. If it comes down to courts to decide what stays on and what gets deleted, it's just going to be an easy way for the rich and their armies of lawyers to control the flow of information.
What, you mean like now with super injunctions and copyrighting compromising photographs prior to an election?
 

Noshino

Member
Thank you for this post.

I think it should be noted that not all personal information is subject to the same levels of protection, if at all.

Your name is typically not protected and can be quoted ad nauseam on the internet, but other information such as medical records are carefully protected. What is protected and to which degree is also something that can greatly vary across the EU (ie: in some countries personal finances may be publicly available, but that would be a huge no-no in others).

Outlets such as newspapers may be able to publish such information in some fashion, but depending on the data, there's a chance that you could't even keep a private archive, let alone allow the rest of the public to consult it. This is where Google finds itself in shaky grounds, as the way it scrubs the internet, it basically indexes everything and then makes it readily available, which is not really comparable with keeping huge stacks of newspapers as a library would do.

I think the lists of sexual offenders could provide a good simile for most American gaffers: European newspapers will, of course, publish new stories about sexual assaults and provide the names and pictures of child rapists once they are found guilty, but as far as I know, it'd be illegal to create a public archive designed to check the personal wherabouts of those people. Similarly, children enjoy a greater degree of protection than adults and you cannot publish certain information about minors without their parent's permission. Then, there's also the issue of certain information such as passports driving licenses and some court orders, which can be copied by the user for identification and administrative purposes, but are not meant to be republished elsewhere in any public fashion like Google does in its search results.

Basically, what the European Union Court of Justice is saying is that member states are free to order Google to take down personal information from their search results that falls under their respective privacy/data processing laws. You may not be able to expunge your name and birthday from Google's search results, but if by any chance Google indexed some protected, private information that you don't want to be public (such as your medical history or a scan of your driver's license), you can absolutely ask them (or force them if it comes to it) to remove it. This also applies to libelous articles etc.

This is an amazing ruling for the consumers.

But that's a lazy way to deal with the problem.

Actually you aren't even taking care of the problem since the information would still be available for the public, it would just be more complicated that's all.

You aren't removing anything other than hints as to where to find private information.
 

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
But that's a lazy way to deal with the problem.

Again, this is not about removing illegal content per se, but setting the record straight when it comes to search sites indexing information which its manipulation is protected/designed by directives and state laws.
 

syllogism

Member
But that's a lazy way to deal with the problem.

Actually you aren't even taking care of the problem since the information would still be available for the public, it would just be more complicated that's all.

You aren't removing anything other than hints as to where to find private information.
It may be that you don't even know who is hosting the actual information, they aren't responding in a timely manner or it is hosted in a jurisdiction where the information isn't protected. Your first priority is limiting access to said information and if Google and other search engines aren't indexing it, it is reasonably private. Furthermore, if the party hosting the information refuses to take it down, it may be difficult, and unreasonable to expect private citizens to, to drag the foreign party to a court with jurisdiction on the issue.
 

Mariolee

Member
On one hand, I agree that it sucks that some stuff leaves a permanent mark on your history in the age of the Internet, on the other hand I fear that this can be abused to remove stuff that should never be forgotten or erased.

2084 by George Orwell
 

Noshino

Member
From the BBC:



http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27394751

I wonder how this will affect Neogaf. Will neogaf now have to offer EU posters a way to delete their account and all of their posts?

yeah this is pretty much where I see this going.

really bad ruling, people will be able to do as they wish and then request their actions to be erased from the internet.

This isn't a "right to be forgotten" as time usually does that on its own, this is more of a right to erase (your) history, which personally I think they shouldn't be allowed to do so.
 
The good thing about privacy laws is that they are usually extremely well laid out and easy to enforce when it comes to rulings.

Hmph? But the basis for this ruling is from a law from 1995. It's not like Google was only invented yesterday. It's obviously not that well laid out, especially since Google have already successfully contested this in earlier stages of the judicial process.

At any rate, I echo a previous posters concerns about the fact that there is no one defending the data's existence - if someone goes to their local (as in, national) data protection agency and says "I want this article about my house being foreclosed taken off Google", the data protection agency is there to deliberate on it. The person mounting the claim can presumably supply evidence and justifications for why it's no longer relevant or otherwise out of date. Who is batting for the other side? Who's there arguing that there is a case that it's in the public interest, or that it otherwise is useful as a historic monument even if there's no specific group to whom it's still important? Will Google be expected to legally defend a bunch of articles it didn't even write?
 
yeah this is pretty much where I see this going.

really bad ruling, people will be able to do as they wish and then request their actions to be erased from the internet.

This isn't a "right to be forgotten" as time usually does that on its own, this is more of a right to erase (your) history, which personally I think they shouldn't be allowed to do so.

Why not? Why should Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr etc be able to keep my personal information if I request them to delete it?
 
From the BBC:



http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27394751

I wonder how this will affect Neogaf. Will neogaf now have to offer EU posters a way to delete their account and all of their posts?
Yeah, this decision is censorship.

How do people square their defense of google with regards to IP law and claim google isn't doing anything wrong by indexing but then claiming it is when it comes to this? Google is agnostic to the actual information

More from that article

It'll be harder, for example, to have a story from the 1990s about an arrest for assault removed if you're a politician than if you're a plumber.

Why? Different people get different rights?

Why not? Why should Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr etc be able to keep my personal information if I request them to delete it?

depends on the terms. but its do you have the right to publicly share information then at a later date force others who got it when it was public to delete it because you changed your mind.

I think facebook should delete private stuff if you request it but if say someone takes your profile picture (which is public) and puts it on their site, you lose the ability to tell people what to do with it.
 
i9yC5.jpg


Good to know we can get stuff out of our records. This will be especially relevant once the current kids grow up and look back at what sort of idiots they were on the internet.

I am surprised someone bothered to put a watermark on this.
 

syllogism

Member
Why? Different people get different rights?
The right to privacy is always balanced against the opposing right of the public in knowing said information. When you willingly put yourself in the public sphere, e.g. by pursuing a career in politics, the public has legitimate interest in more aspects of your private life. In addition, the more information you have willingly made public, say by openly discussing your private life in a press interview, the smaller is the sphere of information that is considered private.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I wonder how this will affect Neogaf. Will neogaf now have to offer EU posters a way to delete their account and all of their posts?

I actually brought this up with some mods about 12-18 months ago, in preparation for this outcome. We don't have a 100% obvious answer to this and only EviLore can give any final policy answer but personally I'm generally willing to work with a sincere and non-abusive account deletion request if I get one; with the restriction that we don't remove remnants of people's posts that are quoted by others and we don't have the resources to pinpoint accuracy anything so it's gotta be all or nothing.
 
The right to privacy is always balanced against the opposing right of the public in knowing said information. When you willingly put yourself in the public sphere, e.g. by pursuing a career in politics, the public has legitimate interest in more aspects of your private life. In addition, the more information you have willingly made public, say by openly discussing your private life in a press interview, the smaller is the sphere of information that is considered private.

Peoples rights don't go away because of their profession. If its a human right it doesn't come in tiers

And I don't disagree with the bolded but I don't know why a non-politician can later go back and revoke this but a politician can't, does it change when you retire? Does it matter what office? This is asking the court to examine and censor the entire internet.
 

syllogism

Member
I think facebook should delete private stuff if you request it but if say someone takes your profile picture (which is public) and puts it on their site, you lose the ability to tell people what to do with it.
Even disregarding the privacy issues, you would still have the right to order it to be taken down because your profile picture is copyrighted.
Peoples rights don't go away because of their profession. If its a human right it doesn't come in tiers

And I don't disagree with the bolded but I don't know why a non-politician can later go back and revoke this but a politician can't, does it change when you retire? Does it matter what office? This is asking the court to examine and censor the entire internet.
Their rights do not go away, but as I noted this is not an absolute right, but the type of right that is balanced against other interests. If a politician retires, the legitimate public interest in his private life is lessened and as such his right to privacy grows. The court (and Google) isn't being asked to "censor" anything until a private citizen makes a valid request under the act.
 

SyNapSe

Member
the list of results would display links to two pages of La Vanguardia’s newspaper, of January and March 1998. Those pages in particular contained an announcement for a real-estate auction organised following attachment proceedings for the recovery of social security debts owed by Mr Costeja González.

In this context,Mr Costeja González stated that the attachment
proceedings concerning him had been fully resolved for a number of years and that reference to them was now entirely irrelevant

So, if I go to jail for grand theft auto. A few years after I get out I could have google remove links to those articles because it would be "irrelevant" at that point, right? I paid my debt to society. or is there some special protection that revolves around social security debt?

In say 1970 every printed newspaper from that day would be in the trash and this info wouldn't be easily accessible to people so I get that. It feels like their trying to deal with the fact that news articles are up indefinitely when posted to the web in a very bizarre and backwards way.
 

tokkun

Member
I can't help but be reminded about how a seemingly well-meaning law requiring search engines to remove links to copyrighted material resulted in Google being forced to remove links to Xenu.net, the website detailing alleged crimes of Scientology.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-865936.html

Here's the line in this new EU ruling that concerns me most:

The Court observes in this regard that, whilst it is true that the data subject’s rights also override, as a general rule, that interest of internet users

The court holds that the presumption should be that an individuals interests are more important than the interests of the public, tipping the scales toward redaction by default.

Xenu.net contains the names of many Scientologists, and it is relatively easy to imagine this EU ruling being used to censor it from search results.
 

syllogism

Member
In say 1970 every printed newspaper from that day would be in the trash and this info wouldn't be easily accessible to people so I get that. It feels like their trying to deal with the fact that news articles are up indefinitely when posted to the web in a very bizarre and backwards way.
This has also been a difficult question in libel law, as online newspaper archives can lead to 'ceaseless liability'. According to some court precedents, a publication takes place every time an article is accessed, so for example when a publisher digitizes their old papers, the publisher could technically be sued for an article originally published even decades ago, essentially ignoring applicable statute of limitations.
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
I keep thinking about this, and it's just really interesting.

Let's say you're a regular Joe who's racist - you want to be a politician. Before you start running, you ask for a wipe - then run, and now when people Google you, they longer realize you've been linked to racism in the past.
 
Their rights do not go away, but as I noted this is not an absolute right, but the type of right that is balanced against other interests. If a politician retires, the legitimate public interest in his private life is lessened and as such his right to privacy grows. The court (and Google) isn't being asked to "censor" anything until a private citizen makes a valid request under the act.

That sounds like delicate work, where both sides should have an opportunity to defend their positions.
 

Aureon

Please do not let me serve on a jury. I am actually a crazy person.
Peoples rights don't go away because of their profession. If its a human right it doesn't come in tiers

No, but can be willingly waived.
Personally, i agree wholly.

I've been employed in an agency that specializes in low-tier 'google PR', that is, trying to erase\mitigate old\incorrect circumstances that lead to a simple google search (Which every employer will do) in revealing private information, which can't be easily taken down.
Two clear examples in which the 'Right to be Forgotten' would've helped those people greatly: (Actual cases in which i worked at.)

A company was wrongly accused of a pretty serious crime (They produced food, and the accusation was pretty dangerous).
Nigh all the local and some national newspapers pick up the story, and publish it.
A month later, the trial is held - the accusations were baseless (Since they came from a department of the state itself, the newspapers rightly considered them sourced enough - said state department had gone as far as using it's state-sanctioned youtube channel to publish a video in which said accusation is 'proved').

Still, trial held. Accusations were baseless, responsibles were sacked and are undergoing trial for slander, abuse of power, and a whole slew of things, all newspapers which had published the original story had to publish a notice that said the accusations were baseless, etc.
In the before-google world, we'd be done.
In that case, though, searching for the company's name (or general product) hit up with three full pages of information relating to the baseless scandal - nigh all of it wasn't taken down, and notices were posted separately.
Which meant, the notices that revealed the accusation as false weren't ranking in google - for obvious motive: A news of a scandal gets clicked much more than the disconfirmation of it, so google's algorithms linked the accusation articles on top.

(Our solution was SEOing correct information to google's first results)

Another case involved a young teacher who had an homonym convicted for pedophilia. While obviously the related articles were reporting correct information, the poor guy wouldn't get hired anywhere as a teacher.

(Our solution was to get a newspaper to print his story about not finding work due to the absurd situation and SEO it to the top of the google searches for his name)

In both cases, being able to just contact google about it and remove\reindex\correct information would've helped greatly, and should be very legal.

(The cycle of Accusation is made -> Is found to be baseless -> Google searches still show only the accusation articles\posts is very, very common. 50-60% of all our clients were exactly in that position.)
 

Oersted

Member
I keep thinking about this, and it's just really interesting.

Let's say you're a regular Joe who's racist - you want to be a politician. Before you start running, you ask for a wipe - then run, and now when people Google you, they longer realize you've been linked to racism in the past.

Sadly, I can live with racists having rights. If that racist wants to be politician, its the job of journalists to find out.
 
No, but can be willingly waived.
Personally, i agree wholly.

I've been employed in an agency that specializes in low-tier 'google PR', that is, trying to erase\mitigate old\incorrect circumstances that lead to a simple google search (Which every employer will do) in revealing private information, which can't be easily taken down.
Two clear examples in which the 'Right to be Forgotten' would've helped those people greatly: (Actual cases in which i worked at.)

A company was wrongly accused of a pretty serious crime (They produced food, and the accusation was pretty dangerous).
Nigh all the local and some national newspapers pick up the story, and publish it.
A month later, the trial is held - the accusations were baseless (Since they came from a department of the state itself, the newspapers rightly considered them sourced enough - said state department had gone as far as using it's state-sanctioned youtube channel to publish a video in which said accusation is 'proved').

Still, trial held. Accusations were baseless, responsibles were sacked and are undergoing trial for slander, abuse of power, and a whole slew of things, all newspapers which had published the original story had to publish a notice that said the accusations were baseless, etc.
In the before-google world, we'd be done.
In that case, though, searching for the company's name (or general product) hit up with three full pages of information relating to the baseless scandal - nigh all of it wasn't taken down, and notices were posted separately.
Which meant, the notices that revealed the accusation as false weren't ranking in google - for obvious motive: A news of a scandal gets clicked much more than the disconfirmation of it, so google's algorithms linked the accusation articles on top.

(Our solution was SEOing correct information to google's first results)

Another case involved a young teacher who had an homonym convicted for pedophilia. While obviously the related articles were reporting correct information, the poor guy wouldn't get hired anywhere as a teacher.

(Our solution was to get a newspaper to print his story about not finding work due to the absurd situation and SEO it to the top of the google searches for his name)

In both cases, being able to just contact google about it and remove\reindex\correct information would've helped greatly, and should be very legal.

(The cycle of Accusation is made -> Is found to be baseless -> Google searches still show only the accusation articles\posts is very, very common. 50-60% of all our clients were exactly in that position.)

so censorship and manipulation of information.

The examples will always be positive. I think your work is important and I would want the opportunity to correct the record but I don't think forcing Google to present the information you want is the job of the courts. The public has the right to know and its not only going to be people with positive stories who use this.

Sadly, I can live with racists having rights. If that racist wants to be politician, its the job of journalists to find out.

But your eliminating the ability of the journalist to find out. This is reminds me (nerd alert) of Episode II where they information on Kamino is erased. I just don't see the courts being able to police this well. I think a better solution would be encouraging google to set up a system to tackle these claims themselves (like they do with copyrights)
 
In both cases, being able to just contact google about it and remove\reindex\correct information would've helped greatly, and should be very legal.

In the case of the latter, it may well have helped the person that's paying you, but s/he's not the only stakeholder here.
 

Acorn

Member
so censorship and manipulation of information.

The examples will always be positive. I think your work is important and I would want the opportunity to correct the record but I don't think forcing Google to present the information you want.
The information is already manipulated by google's rankings.

Why should a false accusation tarnish you for the rest of your life? Is it okay because the news of the falsehood is on page 112?
 

Kinitari

Black Canada Mafia
Sadly, I can live with racists having rights. If that racist wants to be politician, its the job of journalists to find out.
Consider that anyone could have access to this information via a proxy. That people inside EU won't have the same access to information as people outside.
 
The information is already manipulated by google's rankings.

Why should a false accusation tarnish you for the rest of your life? Is it okay because the news of the falsehood is on page 112?
Google is manipulating it agnosticly

I'm not saying it should tarnish you. If I ran google I would set something up. I think there should be a way to tackle libel and slander. There's a difference between taking down the information at its source and this censorship of indexing. But when certain things become public they're public. Its a weird, and pardon me for the cliche, orwellian (though I think its apt because of the idea unperson and revisionist history) thought that the past should be "corrected" do we ban sites like the waybackmachine? does this idea extend outside of cyber space. Do we go to libraries and remove books which turn out to have private information that is wrong or slanderous?

The reforms should be focused on the injection of the information into the public web rather than this eraser the court wants to set up.

If there is false information about you on a webside you are within your rights to claim libel and have it removed, thus wouldn't show on Google's rankings at all. This ruling isn't about that, it is information deemed to become 'irrelevant'.
frankly that's even more worring
 

Nicktendo86

Member
The information is already manipulated by google's rankings.

Why should a false accusation tarnish you for the rest of your life? Is it okay because the news of the falsehood is on page 112?
If there is false information about you on a webside you are within your rights to claim libel and have it removed, thus wouldn't show on Google's rankings at all. This ruling isn't about that, it is information deemed to become 'irrelevant'.
 
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