Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 450 posts

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#331

Post by contravariant »

openasocket wrote: post #76
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…

Except, in this case, the article isn't defamatory. It correctly depicts actions of genuine public interest that happened. The only argument to remove them is that they are old. I'd also note that the website itself is still up, containing the article in its entirety.

It's not entirely clear to me that there's no defamation going on.

Does running an add linking to the article for anyone interested in that person's name count as defamation? And if so, why would it be different if google chose included it prominently amongst the search results?

I'm not entirely convinced that this should count as defamation, but there is room for debate.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#332

Post by kafquaesque »

ivanhoe wrote: post #306
fastball wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right to be forgotten can apply to anything where a private business has my data. Case-in-point: Facebook. Most people don't believe that when you ask a company like Facebook or Google to delete your account, they actually delete your data. Sure, you no longer have access to it, definitely, but most people seem to assume that it's not entirely gone. RTBF ensures that companies whom you provided information to delete…

Or if I'm, say, a convicted con artist I can hide that fact from my future victims, making any future crimes significantly easier...

Downvote

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#333

Post by greglindahl »

mirimir wrote: post #329
chrononaut wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While valid, only a fraction of the population would know to do this, and then a smaller fraction would believe it's worthwhile. It's an added inconvenience that has to outweigh the disadvantages of not doing it.

True. And thanks for confirming my supposition. It's rare to see this mentioned in coverage of the issue. For reasons that are understandable, I guess. The EU has pressured Google to censor its results globally, as I recall. But Google has prevailed on that, at least. So far, anyway.

Even if Google can resist the EU about global censorship, small search engines can't afford to.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#334

Post by lagadu »

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…

> 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 felons of financial crime will be denied officer positions such as CFO in public companies. A sex felony will be a lifetime of reporting on the sex offenders registries.

You should be made aware that none of those happen in most EU countries. Most people here feel that things done in the US like public sex offender registeries are abhorrent.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#335

Post by eadmund »

jacquesm wrote: post #295
stale2002 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pot…

Except of course that is not how it works. Almost every country has a way for companies who have a legitimate need to query the government for a 'clean past' on citizens. That you can't get that question answered through Google is actually good. Just think about it: anybody can add content to Google, and making you look bad is as simple as making a page with a bunch of stuff about you that isn't actually true. And in…

> Almost every country has a way for companies who have a legitimate need to query the government for a 'clean past' on citizens.

Seems to me that's an opportunity for regulatory capture: politically-connected companies end up permitted to check on potential employees, while upstarts and outcasts don't — giving an unfair advantage (assuming the hiring criminals is a disadvantage) to the well-connected firms.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#336

Post by mirimir »

greglindahl wrote: post #333
mirimir wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. And thanks for confirming my supposition. It's rare to see this mentioned in coverage of the issue. For reasons that are understandable, I guess. The EU has pressured Google to censor its results globally, as I recall. But Google has prevailed on that, at least. So far, anyway.

Even if Google can resist the EU about global censorship, small search engines can't afford to.

True.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#337

Post by kafquaesque »

Xylakant wrote: post #297
TomMarius wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about personal purposes. I want employers to be able to look up their prospective employees.

Employers can already request that potential employees hand in a certificate from the authorities that they have no relevant convictions in Germany. (Führungszeugnis) All convictions past a statutory limit are not listed. There’s an extended version for especially sensitive positions (working with children, security sensitive positions,...) that lists convictions that are no longer part of the normal official limit.…

I’m convinced this guy is a troll. He continues to state an opinion in spite of having people give him information that disproves what he is saying.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#338

Post by kafquaesque »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #134
TomMarius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Low level dope fiend? Visiting a prostitute, or selling sex? I can think of a number of crimes, which are pretty much irrelevant for a character assessment.

This is extremely relevant for someone that was formerly a prostitute or drug addict. Even with laws in the US to wipe underage prostitution records there is still a major issue of people even knowing it exists. The people that get convicted of underage prostitution sometimes are trafficking victims. So in the US we are so harsh that we punish previous human trafficking victims indefinitely. It’s a balance. Employers have the means to identify those convicted of crimes.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#339

Post by kafquaesque »

karmajunkie wrote: post #43
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…

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…

Best comment on this thread.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#340

Post by openasocket »

contravariant wrote: post #331
openasocket wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, in this case, the article isn't defamatory. It correctly depicts actions of genuine public interest that happened. The only argument to remove them is that they are old. I'd also note that the website itself is still up, containing the article in its entirety.

It's not entirely clear to me that there's no defamation going on. Does running an add linking to the article for anyone interested in that person's name count as defamation? And if so, why would it be different if google chose included it prominently amongst the search results? I'm not entirely convinced that this should count as defamation, but there is room for debate.

Information has to be false for it to be defamation, it's in the definition. The news article they are trying to de-list does not contain false information.
Post reply on HN