I don't know why, but this creeps me out. This seems like such a hard balance to get right and also too much of a burden for search engines. Also, there is potential for abuse.
There is a potential for abuse with everything.
Google bows to EU privacy ruling
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#42Oh those poor search engines, making billions of dollars having to have the decency to let private individuals not have to have their lives opened up to casual searches on the internet 24/7. What a tragedy! I for one have NO DESIRE for my children to grow up in a world where they do not have control over information about themselves on the internet. I can only pray this sensible law makes it to North America. For tho…
The search engines aren't the ones losing out. This will not impact their bottom line.
We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results. You already have no control over information about you. It has always been like that, people have been gossiping since the dawn of language. If something was published, then it should be in the index.
If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher. This is just like those ridiculous rulings on copyright infringement by linking to a copyrighted work.
And yes, everyone who downvotes you is a shill for Google at 0.2$/downvote. There's just no other explanation.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#43Oh those poor search engines, making billions of dollars having to have the decency to let private individuals not have to have their lives opened up to casual searches on the internet 24/7. What a tragedy! I for one have NO DESIRE for my children to grow up in a world where they do not have control over information about themselves on the internet. I can only pray this sensible law makes it to North America. For tho…
The search engines aren't the ones losing out. This will not impact their bottom line. We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results. You already have no control over information about you. It has always been like that, people have been gossiping since the dawn of language. If something was published, then it should be in the index. If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher. This…
>> "If something was published, then it should be in the index."
We already make exceptions for certain things (illegal content). Obviously a line has to be drawn somewhere - it's just a matter of where we draw it.
>> "We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results."
With this law AFAIK content cannot be removed if that would be against the public good. So, for example, a politician can't have an article that makes the look bad but is true removed. Technically, although no longer 'complete', the quality of your search results should not be hit. The only results being removed are ones which are incorrect and damaging to someone.
>> "If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher."
AFAIK with this law the publisher has to remove it too. Google is involved because they cache pages which can include deleted content.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
The search engines aren't the ones losing out. This will not impact their bottom line. We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results. You already have no control over information about you. It has always been like that, people have been gossiping since the dawn of language. If something was published, then it should be in the index. If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher. This…
>> "If something was published, then it should be in the index." We already make exceptions for certain things (illegal content). Obviously a line has to be drawn somewhere - it's just a matter of where we draw it. >> "We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results." With this law AFAIK content cannot be removed if that would be against the public good. So, for example, a politician can't ha…
Actually, it was not removed from the newspaper archive, because the article referring Mr. Gonzalez was published under a judicial injunction. And so his request was rejected by the Spanish court of data protection. But the case was upheld against Google.
Full EU court ruling in the following link: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...
I think the case make a distinction between a newspaper publication that is rather ephemeral and spatially located vs a search engine that plays a big part in disseminating information or any other "data processor" that can potentially expose the information for ever.
The crux of the argument seems to be that even if you are only indexing, by definition, you are managing/duplicating data, and in some case, they are private data so you have a responsibility before the person being identified (the "data subject").
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is really the idea. The law isn't about squelching free speech, it's just trying to keep this information from being so easily available. It's the right balance. I find it so incredibly hard to believe that so many people are falling for this "poor-us" google routine. I just shake my head in bewilderment every time I hear it.
> The law isn't about squelching free speech, it's just trying to keep this information from being so easily available. You're just mincing words here. There are profound speech arguments to be made when someone is coerced or threatened for publishing _facts_. It is the same nanny-state crap that Europe invokes when it criminalizes offending people, and they have an army of people like you to jump on their bandwagon.…
You sound bitter. Why do you get so worked up over 'nanny-state crap' that's going on on the other side of the world? Business interests in the EU and don't like to put in the extra effort? Or do you just enjoy that mode of righteous indignation?
I find it amusing that – even taking the Google shills out of the picture –, most of the 'debate' around this topic is along the lines of Americans preaching to Europeans about how they're 'doing it wrong', often with emotionally charged language, just like your comment here. Ever thought that Europeans just might have some slightly different values than you do?
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#46Oh those poor search engines, making billions of dollars having to have the decency to let private individuals not have to have their lives opened up to casual searches on the internet 24/7. What a tragedy! I for one have NO DESIRE for my children to grow up in a world where they do not have control over information about themselves on the internet. I can only pray this sensible law makes it to North America. For tho…
The search engines aren't the ones losing out. This will not impact their bottom line. We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results. You already have no control over information about you. It has always been like that, people have been gossiping since the dawn of language. If something was published, then it should be in the index. If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher. This…
We, the user, are only going to lose some information on "common people", and only the one mindful of their public image, no public figure, on events that probably happened 10 or more years ago. So, yes, it could become harder to find if someone was drunk at their prom night, harder to stalk an ex, but I don't think we are going to lose anything crucial. Basically, we'll be back to pre web 2.0. And I am pretty sure that most people won't request any removal to anyone.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#47Only Europeans will have their data censored. Good for businesses hosting VPNs.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The search engines aren't the ones losing out. This will not impact their bottom line. We, the users, are missing out on the completeness of our search results. You already have no control over information about you. It has always been like that, people have been gossiping since the dawn of language. If something was published, then it should be in the index. If you don't like it, take it up with the publisher. This…
We, the user, are only going to lose some information on "common people", and only the one mindful of their public image, no public figure, on events that probably happened 10 or more years ago. So, yes, it could become harder to find if someone was drunk at their prom night, harder to stalk an ex, but I don't think we are going to lose anything crucial. Basically, we'll be back to pre web 2.0. And I am pretty sure t…
Yeah? Really? And what happens if that common person goes on to later become famous for some reason? Does all the info about their drunk prom night reappear the moment the first newspaper story about them is published?
The distinction between someone of public interest and someone who isn't is entirely arbitrary and open to endless debate. What happens when people start disputing that they're famous enough to no longer meet this standard? Historically it results in giant and expensive court fights, which puts people off from trying this - almost by definition, if you're rich enough to waste money on arguing you're not in the public interest, then you are in the public interest. But making Google do this means unless they charge lawyer like bills, suddenly everyone has an incentive to argue they're not important.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
People aren't complaining about the idea of removing private information. They are complaining that you are just removing it from google . The info is still there! And not only that, it's only removed from google.co.{eu*} google.com will still have it. Which makes it as stupid of a law as the one about cookies: Make it look like you are helping privacy while actually doing nothing of any value. Anyone from the EU who…
>it's only removed from google.co.{eu*} google.com will still have it Where is this information from? Sounds a bit strange, but I guess it could be true. It's not the first time big companies say "f u" to these rulings.
Given the disaster this is likely to inflict on search results if scaled up, and the fact that it's not required in America, do you really think they'll make the whole global search engine work this way? Or do you think they'll do the same thing as done in every other case where some stupid country requires censorship: block based on domain name or IP address?
Historically, for Europe it's been done via domain name. Doing it via IP address would not be any more effective though: there'd immediately be dozens of proxy sites set up running in the US that simply forward the search to the US Google and return the results.
Short of building an equivalent to the Chinese Great Firewall and blocking all encrypted traffic, or forcing Google to apply European cenorship globally, there's no way to stop Europeans who want regular results pages from getting them.
Re: Google bows to EU privacy ruling
#50I don't know why, but this creeps me out. This seems like such a hard balance to get right and also too much of a burden for search engines. Also, there is potential for abuse.
Sure, it is a hard balance to get right. But privacy is an important right and we should not throw it away because it creates some extra effort for a multi-billion dollar company. I also find it weak that Page plays the 'think of the startups' card. In fact, I think that since the Snowden leaks, there are far more opportunities to create privacy-aware or privacy-protecting services. E.g., I am pretty sure that Duckdu…
DuckDuckGo is primarily a Bing frontend, no? I seem to recall that they claim to be a real search engine and have their own crawler, but any time someone analyses their results deeply they're almost always identical to Bing.
Given that Microsoft has a large EU presence and is presumably also affected by this law, perhaps they will have to start doing the same thing as Google. Which would then automatically feed through to DuckDuckGo.
I don't believe there are any competitive startup search engines at the moment. However, this doesn't mean there would never be. Plus this ruling is so vague it's likely to impact all kinds of companies that are not startups: think specialised social networks, etc.