41–50 of 77 posts
By way of example, I knew nothing of the Dougie McDonald scandal until this article, which not only brought the scandal to my attention, but also suggests someone (presumably McDonald himself) doesn't want people to find out about the scandal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you understand what the "right to be forgotten" actually is. The point is not that someone who has done bad things can just demand that the entire world magically forget about it and give them a clean slate. You might find this summary PDF informative: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets... [Edit: In a discussion about whether this behaviour amounts to censorship, within 2 minut…
After reading your link, it sounds like peter understands it just fine. He did say "send takedown request to Google".. and that's exactly the situation that is described in your PDF when discussing the case. The article says the court decided that the newspaper archive would be kept intact, and Google would need to delete the links -- and this was the correct balance of the public's right to know. In fact, from my re…
How about the case discussed right here? The summary linked above says:
The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have access to the information in question justifies showing the links in Google search results.
That seems like it could be pretty easily satisfied in this case: Stanley O'Neal is a major business figure with a clear public role, serving on the board that controls gigantic multinational corporation Alcoa. Given that powerful role, it's in the interest of the general public to be able to search for and find information about his recent past in positions of power at other gigantic multinational corporations, such as major events during his CEOship at Merrill Lynch.
The main practical problem, imo, is that Google is unlikely to want to put in the resources that would be necessary to make case-by-case determinations, and would therefore probably just err on the side of deleting anything requested. But taken in isolation, this particular case really seems like one of the easier cases in which to reject the request, which they would probably win if litigated. Perhaps not quite as easy as if it were Silvio Berlusconi asking for articles about his political career to be delinked (that request would be really clearly rejectable), but O'Neal is still clearly a public figure, and the article in question was also about his public role as CEO (while the Mario Costeja González case was about the personal bankruptcy filing of a pretty obscure individual).
Google's hiding Guardian articles? That's outrageous! The Guardian should stop paying Google to index their website and display their articles in search results! Oh, wait...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After reading your link, it sounds like peter understands it just fine. He did say "send takedown request to Google".. and that's exactly the situation that is described in your PDF when discussing the case. The article says the court decided that the newspaper archive would be kept intact, and Google would need to delete the links -- and this was the correct balance of the public's right to know. In fact, from my re…
> In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link. How about the case discussed right here? The summary linked above says: The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have acc…
Which is exactly the problem with this law -- if Google wants to reject a request, the burden of proof is on Google to prove that the information should NOT be deleted. While you may believe Google could win this case, you're suggesting Google spend legal resources (and money) fighting over a few links... and that they should do that every time they get a bogus request. AND if they repeatedly do this and lose their case, Google may be subject to fines of 2% of worldwide annual revenue (over $1B/year).
Why would Google ever decline a request when the penalty is $1B/year?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In fact, from my reading of the article, I'm having a hard time thinking of a case where Google could refuse to delete a link. How about the case discussed right here? The summary linked above says: The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have acc…
this particular case really seems like one of the easier cases in which to reject the request, which they would probably win if litigated. Which is exactly the problem with this law -- if Google wants to reject a request, the burden of proof is on Google to prove that the information should NOT be deleted. While you may believe Google could win this case, you're suggesting Google spend legal resources (and money) fig…
I think the bigger issue for Google isn't their fear of fines and/or losing lawsuits if they really did make case-by-case determinations, but rather than difficulty & expense of putting together any kind of system for case-by-case determinations in the first place. They tend not to want to put together such systems, as can also be seen in the "delete first, ask questions later" approach to letting music labels delete videos on YouTube after algorithmically scanning, not even requiring the labels to put together a proper under-penalty-of-perjury DMCA request. I'm sympathetic to that position from a practical perspective, but I think it's a somewhat different problem. The problem here is that even if it is perfectly possible to make case-by-case decisions in a reliably compliant way, Google just doesn't do case-by-case decisions in that manner, for business reasons: their entire business model is automated decisions at scale, not manual curation of content.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google doesn't have to be "exonerated" of anything because all they do is comply with (absurd) law. And the article does imply the blame lies with Google way too many times.
> And the article does imply the blame lies with Google way too many times. No, it certainly does not: "As for Google itself, it's clearly a reluctant participant in what effectively amounts to censorship."
"Unwilling" or "legally obligated" might describe it better.
It's hard not to see this phrasing as an attempt to spread some culpability on to Google.
Bravo to the Guardian for instigating the Streisand effect in this instance. By way of example, I knew nothing of the Dougie McDonald scandal until this article, which not only brought the scandal to my attention, but also suggests someone (presumably McDonald himself) doesn't want people to find out about the scandal.
Google is playing this ruling really cleverly. They will just blanket accept every single request for a "right to be forgotten" that they receive. Once swathes of valid journalism disappears down the toilet, the shit is slowly going to hit the pan. You could use this for some nefarious purposes I'm sure. I have a client that wants a page removed because of a court case that painted them in a bad light. This ruling ju…
I can't tell whether that's less appealing than the usual idiom.
This law is a very serious threat to freedom of the press, and freedom of speech in general. While it was (allegedly) introduced for reasons that seem quite reasonable - avoiding unfair reputations in search results - it could quite validly be termed as "Right to censor criticism or true facts about yourself". Let's take high-profile person X who is found guilty of some serious crime, like sex offences. They have the…
Most people from the next generation use Facebook. They're not ignorant of how they use it--they use their privacy settings to hide posts from the public.
However Facebook's ToS says [0] Facebook may use any information you share with them "to protect Facebook's or others' rights or property". So hypothetically, if Facebook felt some policy of a presidential candidate threatened "Facebook's rights", they would be in the clear, legally speaking, to publish those photos of you smoking a joint at 18.
So what is the difference exactly between Facebook publishing a photo of a joint and an old Guardian article? They are both expressions of speech. They are both things that the public arguably has a right to know. They are both cases where there is no legal impediment to the speech--other than, in your words, the "right to censor criticism or true facts about yourself." On what basis can we say one is allowed and not the other? I cannot generate a reason for analyzing these situations differently, although I very much want to. I suggest we have to either allow both, or forbid both.
This analysis would suggest that free speech and privacy have a very fundamental conflict--that the gain of one comes at the expense of the other. Increasingly, the right to privacy is really the right to prevent others from publishing information about you that they lawfully and ordinarily collect. I grow increasingly doubtful that we can achieve both outcomes--I think at some point we will have to choose sides.
[0] https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#howweuse