They're giving one example that can only be interpreted one way. They're not reporting news, they're presenting it in such a way that you need to be outraged. They could give more detail, they could say whe he would like it removed. There is no information on the relevance of the links they're trying to remove, the age of the information, ...
Yes. The person's punishment would be over in any case. It is up to the court to decide punishments, not Google.
Corporations aren't people in Europe.
Why should it be? Is there some public database with all possible crimes everybody was accused and convicted off? Is it right people are still being punished for crimes they have already been convicted and punished for?
No, we have the courts to judge people on their crimes. They're trained for that and they actually look at the facts.
So the information would be completely useless because someone might be completely reformed.
Right, but once you are a politician, and therefore become a public person, everybody has the right to publish information about your previous racist exploits and you can no longer demand it to be deleted. That's how the privacy laws in (most?) European countries work.
No, nobody in Europe or doing business in Europe is allowed to post the information online, and websites have to remove it upon request and their operator might even get sued. But that was always the case. Search engines might still have records, or the website initially publishing the data might be located outside the EU, and in those cases, the search engine providers have to delete the data as well.
It is a simple matter of personal history in that case.
No, they can't. Privacy laws.
If the records are a matter of public record, that information should be spread by people who have all the information. Which is not Google, but the justice department.
And yet this case has nothing to do with removing WRONG information. It has to do with removing CORRECT information! Wtf! Your examples are terrible situations, but those cases are completely different from the situation in the OP. You can't defend the removal of correct information by bringing up cases where wrong information is displayed.
Nah, I'd prefer to hear it from people who have a motive to hide their past.
It is about removing personal, outdated, irrelevant and wrong information. The information in question might be technically correct, but the misrepresentation by listing it so high in someone's personal history makes it incorrect.
The stickler is obvious, here - how do you decide what's irrelevant for the general public? Who should decide that? Who decides what's outdated?
The case specifies that already.
I prefer a world where private corporations follow public laws. If that isn't your world okay, but I'm glad it is the EU. For instance, I'm glad good countries forced Google to hide houses on Streetview if people requested it despite them feeling they had the right to post photos of my house.
The press already has to do that kind of balancing as there is a tension between article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life) and Article 10 (Freedom of expression), based on ECJ case law on the matter. Again, this case is only the beginning of the discussion as it gives very little guidance. It may evolve into being a very narrow or a broad right.
Which case specifies this? The ruling as I read it says that the search engine has to decide what removals are valid, and that it's guideline is essentially "they are valid if they information is not relevant for the public, except when it's REALLY relevant to the public" - I certainly might have missed something though
Well, I think Google is considering offloading the work to local governments, which at least make sense.
Shockingly free speech advocates don't like it while privacy ones do. The common theme in reporting is that few have actually read the ruling and understand how ECJ operates. It's not an issue though as even uninformed or exaggerated discussion on the topic is useful.
No, this case is about removing a link to correct, legal information. Not technically correct, not wrong, not incorrect, but correct, legal information. Some years ago, this man had his house repossessed, correct fact. Your own use of misrepresentation and incorrect however, is incorrect. If the removal of ''personal, outdated, irrelevant'' information is so important, the court should rule that the information be removed from the internet completely, including, and most importantly, by the source. The idea that you can censor links to legal and public information that you say people are allowed to see is mind blowing.
Freedom of information is the right that says government should make all rulings they make publically available through their systems. This law doesn't attack that. And protection of the privacy of persons should take precedence. Otherwise you live in a facist state where every move can be monitored. Because we have the right to know what you do.
No idea how this works in other European countries, but in Germany, arrest information is not public. The police only discloses gender and age of suspects, no names or photos.
Europeans consider privacy, personal freedom and dignity more important than freedom of information or the curiosity of the general public. And that's a good thing.
I think treating Google like the local press is not going to work out. They operate fundamentally differently, and their functionality is completely different.
The paper was only allowed to print it because they were told to do it by the government and because it was justified at the time. Printing it today would be a violation of privacy.
There is no reason to believe the guidelines are going to be arbitrary.
Indeed.
So? That they function differently doesn't place them above the law. They thought they are, which lead to stuff like the invasion of privacy by Google StreetView.
They were still illegal, just a lot harder to shut down.
With this ruling it will disappear for people searching through search engines. It won't be removed from the front page, it will be removed from the pages of time. Whether or not printing that exact information today is a violation of privacy or not, doesn't change the fact that the court ruled it illegal to link to an article containing nothing illegal.
And that's exactly why this directive is important. It might not be possible to shut down the site if it's not hosted in the EU, but now it's at least possible to remove it from search engines.
You're saying they should get a pass on privacy laws other sites have to follow because they function differently. I'm saying they aren't above the law. The right to privacy existed. This ruling is telling Google the privacy laws apply to them too.
No, you can still find the information, just not by searching for the name of the person. It will still show up under other query words. In addition, the name query will likely state that one result was removed, meaning it's possible to contact Google or the court for more information, in particular for the press.
No, this ruling is placing ADDITIONAL privacy laws on them. People can't petition yelp in the EU to remove bad reviews from 10 years ago, but they can Google. It's not illegal what Google has done thus far, and other sites are not being held to these standards.
So I could theoretically find information about someone, but only by not searching for that someone. That makes rewriting history a-okay. No wait, it makes the ruling even more laughable. It's okay to find information about this person, but only if you're not trying to find out information about this person.
In what way has Yelp spread personal information about private persons? Companies aren't people in Europe. The ruling is saying Article 8 of the European COnvention of Human Rights also applies to them. The law has always existed, but Google thought it didn't apply.
It's about context and relevancy. Lets say you're a lawyer and a potential client googles your name, but the first thing Google will spit out is not your website, but a six year old newspaper article about a large party with a picture of you with underpants on your head. Completely irrelevant, but you probably just lost a client. This information is probably perfectly legal and should exist, but that doesn't mean a search engine should ink to it when somebody looks up your name.