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Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

bbc.com

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Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#101

Post by ataturk »

mrtksn wrote: post #25
Elessar wrote: post #8

We're rapidly moving to a point where an official (government) criminal record is not important to folks you want to interact with -- landlords, employers etc. They will instead turn to Google. As such, Google might as well be the official record for many people. And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice. I don't know…

Mark steal cookies, gets caught and serves his sentence in jail. Now Mark is out, looking for a job as a JavaScript developer but when Mark is Googled to check about his involvement in OS projects and personal portfolio before his Github profile the article on CNN from 5 years ago is displayed and apparently Mark is a cookie monster. Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again? Mark made a mistake but Is He really w…

I think you are all misunderstanding the purpose of all of this. Google and government are working together to relieve you of as many rights and freedoms as possible. What one can't accomplish, the other can, which is why they work in conjunction. As far as crimes go, all will be guilty of "serious" crimes in the future because it is the easiest way to strip you of your rights as a citizen.

It's just all so obvious what is going on here.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#102

Post by tboyd47 »

Elessar wrote: post #8

We're rapidly moving to a point where an official (government) criminal record is not important to folks you want to interact with -- landlords, employers etc. They will instead turn to Google. As such, Google might as well be the official record for many people. And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice. I don't know…

The states that permanently disenfranchise felons are mainly ex-Confederate. It is the legacy of the institutional race-based class system of the South. It was used with racial profiling and fraudulent eye-witness testimony against African-Americans to form Jim Crow v2 after Civil Rights.

It's become cliche to bring racism into unrelated topics, but it's the one thing that makes most of the puzzling things about America make sense. It's too bad many people in tech culture don't give importance to American history (either because they're foreigners who were never taught these things or because of their "pure" engineering mindset [which is itself a cultural product]), so end up aggravating old social ills.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#103

Post by TomMarius »

izacus wrote: post #95
TomMarius wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I (an EU citizen) want to keep my right to think whatever I want about a criminal - and that includes looking at or keeping records. I feel like this 'right to be forgotten' hurts my safety - I don't want to forget that someone murdered someone or raped someone, these things are unforgettable and definitely unforgivable - and I want to know about them, and I want employers to be able to look them up.

Except that most people aren't removing those convictions. With your rigid midset you are punishing thousands of people who have been abused by social media and have done nothing wrong. Destroying their lives permanently.

Could you give me an example, please? I really can't think of a situation when a crime is so irrelevant that nobody cares (and thus the record isn't needed) and yet the record destroys lives (and that proves that people care, BTW) and thus must be deleted.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#105

Post by comboy »

yiyus wrote: post #91
comboy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad you asked :) I want to publish a website with thoughts so far and looking for more brains. What I have in mind is a global, multilayered web of trust. It would be a game changer. Of course, I don't mean it as a startup, it must be decentralized. I don't care who creates it, I just really want to have it. I'm sure you know about the small world effect[1]. Example of layer: coding skill. I assign weights to fr…

> Example of layer: coding skill. I assign weights to friends I know. Now if I want to know if X is a good coder I check what friends of my friends think about it and multiply it by weights I have assigned to those friends (recursive). But it's much more than just having reasonable opinion about coding skill of somebody who you want to hire or cooperate with. So, basically, your multilayered web of trust is just a po…

I think this is one of these "doesn't work" that come to analytical mind when presented in a short form and the reason this idea is not more popular.

It would be, if the ranking would be global and not through the lens of your network.

You can have the most popular coder A, he does lot's of video tutorials and blogs. But you have your finely cured network regarding this technology because you are pro yourself. You know that according to people you trust, A is just good. B on the other hand, who never worked for his popularity and whose skills are only known to few other pros who worked with him, is excellent.

That is what you need web of trust for. That's what you likely use today. It's just without strictly specified protocol, using your brain as a storage and meetings with your friends or conferences as a communication channel. It can be improved and made more efficient.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#106

Post by walshemj »

danielfoster wrote: post #15
Elessar wrote: post #8

We're rapidly moving to a point where an official (government) criminal record is not important to folks you want to interact with -- landlords, employers etc. They will instead turn to Google. As such, Google might as well be the official record for many people. And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice. I don't know…

If this is the case, then the government should pass laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of criminal record. Instead they've passed the puck (rather badly) to Google. And it's not like Google is the only way to find things. Should newspapers be required to delete pages about an individual or destroy print copies? What about other search engines such as Yandex or Baidu? Of course anyone could just search on Go…

Of course not because if say a tabloid news paper finds out about some one they dislike or want to sell papers - they will "monster" them.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#107

Post by halflings »

izacus wrote: post #72
282883392 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not change your name in the EU? Seems like someone changing their name would be able to solve some of these issues.

Why should you be forced to do that? I mean, you're assuming two things: - That people who want their data removed are criminals. That's hugely not the case. Does a teenager who was plastered all over social media / newspapers have to change his/her name because someone targeted abuse at him/her? - Even if they were jailed for a transgression, they paid their part to the socienty. For serious transgressions, the auth…

GP is not assuming anything. Literally the first paragraph in the post:

> The man, who has not been named due to reporting restrictions surrounding the case, wanted search results about a past crime he had committed removed from the search engine.

Any example of somebody being abused/targeted and Google refusing to remove them from search results? The only cases where they fought back were people trying to hide their criminal record (most often politicians, white collar crime).

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#108

Post by mrtksn »

isostatic wrote: post #84
sheepz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This a perfectly bad example, because your example makes the reader's intuition pump in a certain way. Consider the alternative story where Mark is a wife beater. Would still come to the same conclusion? Or does it say something about Mark's character or his possible future behavior?

Chances are if he's a wife beater it won't be in the paper -- the vast majority of domestic violence cases aren't reported.

Also a good point, only the most shocking or entertaining crimes would be on the Googleable public record. Mark's misfortune is that stealing cookies was entertaining enough piece that passed the editorial.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#109

Post by danShumway »

lumisota wrote: post #100
danShumway wrote: post #94

This is kind of a trend I've been noticing, where Europe will try to fix a valid technological problem, but pick the most problematic or poorly implemented solution to do it. It's not clear to me what the difference is between a government censoring someone directly and a government making it impossible for anyone to find a piece of information. Right to Be Forgotten only works if it becomes prohibitively expensive f…

Discriminating on the basis of spent convictions is illegal in the UK (where this ruling took place).

Oh cool, I didn't know that. Thanks for commenting.

Is there something I'm missing about Right to be Forgotten then? Why is this needed if it's already illegal to discriminate against someone over minor crimes or scandals?

Does the law not have much teeth or something?

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#110

Post by gremy0 »

volak wrote: post #39
mrtksn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark steal cookies, gets caught and serves his sentence in jail. Now Mark is out, looking for a job as a JavaScript developer but when Mark is Googled to check about his involvement in OS projects and personal portfolio before his Github profile the article on CNN from 5 years ago is displayed and apparently Mark is a cookie monster. Is Mark sentenced to never be employed again? Mark made a mistake but Is He really w…

The problem is future employers don't know if mark made a one time mistake or is a serial cookie monster. Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record? Mark needs to be given the opportunity to demonstrate to an employer hes no longer a cookie monster. He needs to rebuild that trust. He would do this by taking a lower than average pay, agreeing to periodic cookie-tests, and giving the employer…

If your criminal record is truly relevant to the job, then the employer should do the responsible thing and get a proper background check done. Which are factual and non-biased. Such things shouldn't be left up to google page ranking algorithms and media that tends toward sensationalisation. It's lazy and unprofessional.

> Why would they hire mark over a similar employee with a clean record?

Is it useful to have people with a history of low level crime habitually unemployable. Don't we want to reduce crime.

> Mark needs to be given the opportunity to demonstrate to an employer hes no longer a cookie monster.

Mark is innocent of further crimes until he is convicted and the employer would need to have reasonable cause to discriminate against him. We have parole and other such mechanisms where official bodies can decide how long a person needs to speed demonstrating they are no longer a criminal, and make sure the relevant people are aware of this. Why leave it up to some random employer armed with google.

> He would do this by taking a lower than average pay,

Why does he deserve lower pay. This is just enabling employers to take advantage of vulnerable people.

> and giving the employer the option to terminate his employment at any time without cause.

The employer has the right to terminate at any time for mark committing a criminal act. He doesn't need this. Plus this is europe and workers have rights

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