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

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#41

Post by darkmighty » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

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…

But you're not talking about forgiveness, you're talking about forgetting. Forgiveness is when we acknowledge mistakes and give them another chance, forgetting is when we erase mistakes. Perhaps instead of artificially limiting our own memory we should be looking to learn to better forgive people in the age of perfect recall.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#42

Post by sigzero » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:38 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #2

Note that this case involved a criminal who wished to expunge his conviction from search results. > ‘The right to be forgotten is meant to apply to information that is no longer relevant but disproportionately impacts a person,’ said Jim Killock, executive director, ‘The Court will have to balance the public’s right to access the historical record, the precise impacts on the person, and the public interest.’ ‘The pub…

> The right to be forgotten is meant to apply to information that is no longer relevant but disproportionately impacts a person

Who the hell makes that call? That in and of itself should tell you this is a bad law.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#43

Post by karmajunkie » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:38 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…

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 defamatory speech is not protected. Why does it matter that the speech is online or not when considering the essence of the law? As you stated, if you put up a billboard they can find you and sue you for defamation. Why shouldn't the same be possible online? If I get an injunction against a billboard with defamatory speech the owner of the billboard is required to take it down. Why shouldn't an online provider be equally obligated?

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#44

Post by simias » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

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…

Mankind didn't have a way to look up in mere seconds the cringe-worthy posts I made on Usenet as a teenager for thousands of years either. It's the amount of data and the ease to consult it that creates this issue.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#45

Post by hungrybackspace » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:40 PM UTC

wooly_bully wrote: post #33

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…

Agree with you on most points. A jail, however, is not supposed to serve the purpose of being a mechanism of forgiveness. It is a mechanism of punishment. We as a citizenry give the government the sole right to jail / punish citizens as a way of enforcing the law. While someone may be reformed as an outcome of serving time, it is not the primary goal. Otherwise, we would see a higher focus on lowering recidivism rate…

It is not expressly a mechanism of punishment. It is expressly a mechanism of debt repayment; it can be argued that that is closer to a mechanism of forgiveness than one of punishment.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#46

Post by JonnyNova » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #34

toomuchtodo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind the idea of libel and slander exists in the US. I’d see this court decision as an extension of those ideas (materially true information that can be deindexed by the subject).

I don't think anyone has an issue with libel and slander laws. Those are about known false information. Censoring an inconvenient truth seems wrong to me. The whole point of freedom of speech is because someone didn't like the speech.

I think that the Google is stepping into the realm of government because they might feel that government services are lacking in this realm. These records and controls for what remains available would be better served in a government setting than a private corporation one.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#47

Post by Supernaut » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

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…

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.

That doesn't mean that Mark doesn't deserve a second chance at life. But it does mean that, for the first while at least, you are ill-advised to give him the keys to the room where the cookies are kept.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#48

Post by paublyrne » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

wooly_bully wrote: post #33

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…

Agree with you on most points. A jail, however, is not supposed to serve the purpose of being a mechanism of forgiveness. It is a mechanism of punishment. We as a citizenry give the government the sole right to jail / punish citizens as a way of enforcing the law. While someone may be reformed as an outcome of serving time, it is not the primary goal. Otherwise, we would see a higher focus on lowering recidivism rate…

It is a mechanism of punishment.

This depends on the jurisdiction. Prisons serve many apparent purposes, the mix of claimed and actual intents varies: punishment, deterrent, removal from society for society's protection, commercial reasons, reformation, historical precedent ...

Whatever, I agree that few jurisdictions do a great job of lowering recidivism, putting into place the societal structures to support ex convicts after release in finding stable work and so on.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#49

Post by ocdtrekkie » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

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…

This is not a realistic scenario: Pretty much all employers will just hire someone else.

Re: Google loses ‘right to be forgotten’ case

#50

Post by izacus » Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 3:44 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…

This is not how a lot of EU countries function - which is why there's friction there. The American "You are a criminal for life and will eternally be punished!" attitude is clashing with an EU mindset of being able to start a new life. Permanent records are hugely damaging for persons livelihood in these cases.