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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

#231

Post by stale2002 »

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?

The edge cases are already excluded. I think that murder and sexual crimes are discluded from someone's right to be forgotten.

Perhaps there are a couple other types of crimes that could be as well.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#232

Post by djsumdog »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #218
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.

But it is. Clearly in the article, both people wanted the record of their crime removed. This is censorship, pure and simple.

This is why the EFF opposes the Right to be Forgotten.

And the bigger questions: why the fuck is Google is soul source of record for things on the Internet. We need other viable search engines that are no subject to this kind of pressure.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#233

Post by microcolonel »

DanBC wrote: post #219
microcolonel wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> and recognised judicial ways of getting off it

That would make sense if you were never guilty of it, but I disagree completely with the idea that somebody who has been ruled guilty (without a successful appeal) has a right to be forgotten only for having served their time.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#234

Post by jradd »

Perhaps Google the service provider or ISP or carrier could censor search results according to the specific geo the query originates from. i.e. in many states it is not illegal to conspire to intercept communications so long as one of the parties are aware, or if this is a place of business.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#235

Post by dleslie »

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…

In Canada those citizens who are incarcerated retain the right to vote. The democratic right to vote is inalienable in Canada.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#236

Post by volak »

lovich wrote: post #200
volak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was HR and I had a choice between a Javascript developer for 50k with a clean record and a Javascript developer with a 5 year old conviction for 40k - I'd actually pick the later. But only if I could fire him immediately if he turns out to actually be a cookie monster.

That's how HR acts in practice though. Especially with automated tools, checking off a "have you ever had a prior conviction" box just gets you an automated rejection without a human ever looking at it

Yes a lot of companies do. Especially minimum wage jobs. Because there are vastly more people without a record willing to work. But now imagine you have a previous conviction but you are willing to work for less than minimum wage?

If I value a fry cook for $10 an hour and I get 1 person with a previous conviction who wants to work for $5 - I'll hire him in a heartbeat so long as I could fire him at any moment. And since I'm a good employer I'll make him a deal to pay him $10 an hour after 6 months provided he stays clean and works hard.

As it stands I'm not allowed to do any of that - so the convict remains unemployed and will probably commit more crime just to survive.

I'll let my man Friedman take it from here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca8Z__o52sk

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#237

Post by rleigh »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #206
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If felons were truly forgiven, they would have their right to vote restored. I have always thought that was outrageous. I think people should be aloud to vote even while they're in jail. The current system could allow a group to wipe out their political opponents by simply passing a law outlawing a common activity, then selectively enforcing it. I mean that's basically what the war on drugs was about.

Indeed. Under the European Convention on Human Rights it's forbidden to impose a blanket ban on all prisoners voting. Unfortunately, some states (including the United Kindom) wilfully defy the ECtHR on this issue.

There's a big difference between allowing people in prison to vote, and in never allowing them to vote again after they are released. People in prison by intention don't have the same civil rights as normal citizens, and so withholding the right to vote doesn't seem unreasonable. Withholding it in perpetuity seems outrageous.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#238

Post by dleslie »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #135
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…

If felons were truly forgiven, they would have their right to vote restored. I have always thought that was outrageous. I think people should be aloud to vote even while they're in jail. The current system could allow a group to wipe out their political opponents by simply passing a law outlawing a common activity, then selectively enforcing it. I mean that's basically what the war on drugs was about.

In Canada the right to vote is inalienable, and so those citizens who are incarcerated can vote.

It's odd that the USA, which champions democracy, doesn't hold the right to vote as a universal and inalienable right of all citizens.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#239

Post by mattnewton »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #223
pitaj wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it's not as bad as deleting the information, but it's still much much worse than just doing nothing about the information.

Worse for who? Allowing Google to render someone permanently unemployable based on ancient or false information is definitely not "better".

Employers go to Google to find this information because it is free, not because they are randomly searching or because Google is pushing this information to them. I believe many (maybe even most) will simply switch to other services that provide background checks. IANAL but I don’t see how this ruling anticipates this. Now, you could argue that services like that will be less susceptible to false information. I don’t know why that would be the case and there seems to be some evidence against it on the recent “checkr” funding thread on hacker news[0]

This is a blunt technological tool to fix a delicate social issue. The information is still there, but behind a service. I believe deleting the information is already not in the public’s interests [1][2], and it looks like the law agrees to an extent[3], but the solution they came up with effective puts a tollbooth in front of it.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16822093

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27423527

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3156779/More-280-000...

[3] see paragraph 3 http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/article-17-right-to-eras...

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#240

Post by odorousrex »

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…

I used to think I was unlucky to have an extremely common name. (First and Last) Now I consider myself lucky.

I cannot be found on Google or Facebook simply due to the massive signal-to-noise ratio. The fact that a minor celebrity and a minor athlete share the name help as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if Legal Name changing becomes even more of a thing as people try to hide their pasts from Google et al.

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