Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case • Hacker News Board

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#211

Post by dhimes » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #163

I am just curious, what about the edge cases? What if a person commits acts of domestic violence with their romantic partners, and then gets Google to remove that record. Don't their future partners deserve to know? What if someone commits legal but shady acts in dealing with people. Why should they have a right to remove it from the public record?

What if a person commits acts of domestic violence with their romantic partners, and then gets Google to remove that record.

What if a person is merely accused, but acquitted. Would you hire him/her if you had options?

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#212

Post by paxys » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

wumpus wrote: post #179

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…

There's one big difference, and it's Orwellian -- courts and politicians are claiming that removing something from a search engine isn't censorship.

Yup, essentially "we're not blocking any content, just blocking any means for you to find it".

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#213

Post by izacus » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #143

izacus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if we know that he stole cookies before, he must axiomatically be considered less trustworthy around cookies than someone who has no history of treat theft. For his entire life? Even if he was a teenager or young? Doesn't american society even consider something as simple as possibility of changing your behaviour in 60+ years of life? I mean... half of my most successful highschoolmates, leading great compa…

Smoking pot is not the same as theft. One is harmless to society, the other is not.

> Smoking pot is not the same as theft. One is harmless to society, the other is not.

With the current US system those both things will punish you for the whole life, even if you grow out of it. Even if its petty theft. Or large theft. Or a bit of pot. Or selling pot. Social media and background checks will damage your future prospects forever for a minor thing that doesn't make a difference in other societies.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#214

Post by lovich » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #133

karmajunkie wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the problem is not that society hasn't adjusted to this new space we call the Internet, but that the people in charge of the internet (or rather, the things on it) haven't figured out yet that they still bear some obligation to the rest of the world? To use your example, whether I put up a website or a billboard with defamatory information is irrelevant. We have laws that protect us, which declare that defama…

If anybody, I think the provider, not the search engine should be obligated. He should be, but in many cases it's just not doable, because governments are local and the Internet is global. I think it should be accepted as a fact. So maybe we need some rethinking. Maybe banning books was never a good idea, even if ideas presented there seemed dangerous, inconvenient and sometimes plainly false. To me the situation loo…

In your analogy it's more like A is a fence who made money off of stolen goods from B and is acting like they have no responsibility for being part of the transaction. If this was some non profit or a person collecting the information as a hobby it might be a different argument, but these are for profit companies making this available.

Whether or not you think that should be allowed, you cant pretend that the search engines are not responsible in some part for the process being possible

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#215

Post by microcolonel » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #35

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…

>As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime. That's not really true. Serving prison time is neither a way to "forgive" nor a way to "pay debt back to society" . Those are just common phrases some people use. If felons were truly forgiven , they would have their right to vote restored. They wouldn't be denied a passport to travel abroad or denied a firearms license. Convicted fe…

> Society has never perceived jail time as truly resetting the scarlet letter back to zero. Therefore, the debate is whether "Google results" is in the same bucket as "sex offender list". For many in society, they think it's wrong to remove those results from Google.

I mean, on the most basic level, a prior offense is an excellent predictor of a future offense. If I want to hire somebody to supervise women or children, I'd like not to hire somebody who (at any point in their life) victimized women or children, because it's not too much to ask!

I, for one, don't think a murderer should be forgiven. A murderer gets to live, and the victim is no longer alive, there is fundamentally nothing you can do to be forgiven for murder. To me, that is as it should be.

At very least, the perpetrator of a crime should not be left to decide whether or not I forgive him, and to enforce that through the courts.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#216

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:51 PM UTC

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…

Because I don't want a company to be criminally disallowed from rejecting former criminals.

There are some jobs where that matters.

What I want is for companies to NOT, outright reject someone because of a google search. After the person is 90% THROUGH an interview process, and the company has spent significant amounts of resources interviewing someone, THEN they can reject them.

The problem isn't rejection for a potentually valid reason. The problem is the immediate instant judgment without giving someone a chance.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#217

Post by Paul-ish » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

Can people use proxies through other countries to see unfiltered results, or are the results removed in all countries?

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#218

Post by M2Ys4U » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:52 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #19

It's absolutely insane what they are doing (EU). Should libraries remove newspapers with my name if I don't like what's written there about me? It's pure censorship. It all stems from the fact that society hasn't yet adjusted to the reality that not everything on the Internet is true. People share between themselves lots of false beliefs. The Internet is just another medium. The problem is that if I put up a billboar…

>It's absolutely insane what they are doing (EU). Should libraries remove newspapers with my name if I don't like what's written there about me?

That would be insane if that was how the law works. It's not how the law works.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#219

Post by DanBC » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:53 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #215

jasode wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime. That's not really true. Serving prison time is neither a way to "forgive" nor a way to "pay debt back to society" . Those are just common phrases some people use. If felons were truly forgiven , they would have their right to vote restored. They wouldn't be denied a passport to travel abroad or denied a firearms license. Convicted fe…

> Society has never perceived jail time as truly resetting the scarlet letter back to zero. Therefore, the debate is whether "Google results" is in the same bucket as "sex offender list". For many in society, they think it's wrong to remove those results from Google. I mean, on the most basic level, a prior offense is an excellent predictor of a future offense. If I want to hire somebody to supervise women or childre…

> If I want to hire somebody to supervise women or children, I'd like not to hire somebody who (at any point in their life) victimized women or children, because it's not too much to ask!

Sure. But let's make that list formal, with recognised judicial ways of getting on it, and recognised judicial ways of getting off it, rather than just "this newspaper said it", which leaves people without recourse unless they can afford lawyers.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#220

Post by steve918 » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 5:56 PM UTC

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 problem I've seen with the current system is that Google is the record of truth even when the accused is proven innocent or the case is thrown out completely. Perception is reality and all people see are news stories about false claims. Someone being accused of a crime is great news, but rarely is an acquittal worth printing.

Then anytime a new story comes out with that persons name, the news outlet links to every other related story about them so they get more traffic and ad revenue at the person's expense. If Google and shady local news outlets are going to be the record of wrongs and control peoples careers and destiny, there needs to be some checks and balances.