Right To Be Forgotten Hits The NY Times
from the the-paper-of-record dept
Over the weekend, the NY Times revealed that it is the latest publication to receive notification from Google that some of its results will no longer show up for searches on certain people’s names, under the whole “right to be forgotten” nuttiness going on in Europe these days. As people in our comments have pointed out in the past, it’s important to note that the stories themselves aren’t erased from Google’s index entirely — they just won’t show up when someone searches on the particular name of the person who complained. Still, the whole effort is creating a bit of a Streisand Effect in calling new attention to the impacted articles.
In this case, the NY Times was notified of five articles that were caught up in the right to be forgotten process. Three of the five involved semi-personal stuff, so the Times decided not to reveal what those stories were (even as it gently mocks Europe for not believing in free speech):
Of the five articles that Google informed The Times about, three are intensely personal ? two wedding announcements from years ago and a brief paid death notice from 2001. Presumably, the people involved had privacy reasons for asking for the material to be hidden.
I can understand the Times’ decision not to reveal those articles, but it still does seem odd. You can understand why people might not want their wedding announcements findable, but they were accurate at the time, so it seems bizarre to have them no longer associated with your name.
The other two stories, however, again reveal the more questionable nature of this process:
One Times article that is being shielded from certain searches in Europe is a report from 2002 about a decision by a United States court to close three websites that the federal government accused of selling an estimated $1 million worth of unusable Web addresses. The complaint named three British companies, TLD Network, Quantum Management and TBS Industries, as well as two men who it said controlled the companies: Thomas Goolnik and Edward Harris Goolnik of London.
The case was later settled. Thomas Goolnik did not respond to messages left via social networking sites.
Now, if the request was sent in by one of the Goolnik’s, it seems especially questionable. The fact that they were involved in a legal dispute is relevant factual information, even if it was eventually settled.
As for the other article…
In the last of The Times articles, a feature about a 1998 production of ?Villa Villa? by the ensemble called De la Guarda, it was much harder to divine the objection. Not a review, the article explored how the antic, acrobatic show was managing ?to get a generation raised on MTV interested in seeing live theater.?
It’s unclear from that article what someone is upset about. There are a few people named (though many are Americans who aren’t supposed to be filing for such requests). And, even with the quotes it’s difficult to see how any of them could upset someone. The only thing that caught my eye is that the story quotes a “27-year-old art student” named Feliz Skamser. Skamser’s quote is innocuous “It was like a dream, only more intense,” but the very same sentence awkwardly inserts a quote from The Guardian (not from Skamser) calling the show “theater as good as sex.” If people read the sentence quickly, perhaps some might think that Skamser said that latter quote — and perhaps she was annoyed that people were associating her with a quote about sex? Or maybe she just doesn’t want people to know she went to the theater? A search on her name will turn up that story on the American Google, but not the UK Google.
Once again, though, we’re left wondering how this setup makes any sense at all. If the information was accurate at the time, then why should it be removed?
Filed Under: europe, right to be forgotten
Companies: google, ny times
Comments on “Right To Be Forgotten Hits The NY Times”
Once again, though, we’re left wondering how this setup makes any sense at all. If the information was accurate at the time, then why should it be removed?
It’s amazing to me how much you purport to be a defender of privacy, yet you don’t seem to understand how something that is true can also be private. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised: As you made clear recently, you think you’re protecting the privacy of your anonymous posters so long as you don’t reveal their actual names. Anything else is fair game, right? Lots of accurate information is private, Mike. Care to post all of the accurate information about yourself? I thought not. This isn’t hard. Privacy and accuracy are not the same thing. Journalism! Yay!
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I wish I had the right to forget you.
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In your feckless attempt to insult Mike at all costs, you’ve conveniently ignored the fact that these facts were published in newspapers by people who felt they were relevant and newsworthy. These aren’t private details because they were published. You know why ‘publish’ and ‘public’ sound similar? Because the meaning of ‘publish’ is: to make known publicly. It’s fine to argue about whether or not the original journalist and editor should have published the details in their stories when they did, but once the information is out of the box, it’s futile to try to shove it back in. If anything was defamatory, the “victims” can sue. But the articles in question aren’t gossip magazine rumors. These are factual stories and the people in them are responsible for anything they said or did that appeared in the story. You’re trying to play devil’s advocate but you’re just attacking a strawman.
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In your feckless attempt to insult Mike at all costs, you’ve conveniently ignored the fact that these facts were published in newspapers by people who felt they were relevant and newsworthy. These aren’t private details because they were published. You know why ‘publish’ and ‘public’ sound similar? Because the meaning of ‘publish’ is: to make known publicly. It’s fine to argue about whether or not the original journalist and editor should have published the details in their stories when they did, but once the information is out of the box, it’s futile to try to shove it back in. If anything was defamatory, the “victims” can sue. But the articles in question aren’t gossip magazine rumors. These are factual stories and the people in them are responsible for anything they said or did that appeared in the story. You’re trying to play devil’s advocate but you’re just attacking a strawman.
Yes, I read the article. I understand these things were published and true. I’m saying that I don’t have such a narrow view of privacy that I see no countervailing value in removing published and true statements.
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I see no countervailing value in removing published and true statements.
That would not make sense even if this was about removing published and true statements –which it is not, no statements are actually going to be removed from anywhere.
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By “narrow view of privacy” I presume you mean “sensible view of privacy”?
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r u retard?
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Smart.
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For someone who hates Mike so much, you sure love giving him money.
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Can’t believe I never noticed that antidirt has insider status. Yep, it’s official – he’s fucking insane. Goes by a username indicating he’s against whatever it is Techdirt says, so he’s biased from the get go (imagine calling oneself Anti-New York Times, and trying to get people thinking you have a fair viewpoint)…yet he paysTechdirt money for insider status?
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That’s why I’m the ANTI-antidirt. I also got inside status because status.
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If you want your information to be private, maybe you shouldn’t be giving interviews to journalists.
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Or paying for a death notice.
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Nobody will remember you.
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Myth busted.
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Antidirt, just why do you pay Techdirt money for insider status? I’ll have to assume you just pay for the badge, maybe access to crystal ball articles (since I never see you in the chatbox). What’s your reasoning for paying a blog money that you clearly detest and are wholly against (hence your user-name).
This wouldn’t be the same as someone who’s against what a newspaper publisher prints and always buying their newspaper to get at the article, since that’s pretty much the best way to read the articles that person would be wanting to counter. Here, you don’t have to do that.
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Antidirt, just why do you pay Techdirt money for insider status? I’ll have to assume you just pay for the badge, maybe access to crystal ball articles (since I never see you in the chatbox). What’s your reasoning for paying a blog money that you clearly detest and are wholly against (hence your user-name).
Mike did his Beacon fundraiser saying that he needed money. I was happy to help out since I read TD everyday. Mystery solved.
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…this doesn’t answer my question. Mike runs a website, both him and his site you clearly loathe (yet can’t stay away from). Why would you give money to a person whom you are dead set against? Just because he said he needed it?
So do I. I need money too. How come you’re not giving me money?
Is your angle more along the lines of “I’m here to be the lone voice of opposition and critique, to constantly taunt Mike (whom I secretly admire) to try and keep up and raise the quality of his work, so that he doesn’t just listen to adoring fans and hence, slide into mediocrity”?
If so, that’s sorta what I do whenever I’m debating theists – I tell them that I’m there to refute their arguments for whatever religion it is they’re espousing and that I want them to up their game, to actually do or say something that will convince me.
If so, then you’re not the lone voice of opposition and critique. I’ve criticised Mike plenty of times in the past and so have others here.
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I don’t hate him or his site. I read TD everyday because I see value here. I usually don’t read anything written by his flunkies. I think their posts are terrible and childish. I won’t give you money because you don’t create value for me. Start a website that I read and ask for money, and I’ll help you out. I do enjoy giving Mike a hard time (obviously) because I think he can do better. He’s shown that he can be critical and incisive when he wants to be. I just wish he were that way when it comes to IP. I do think he’s quite dishonest at times, which is unfortunate. And I don’t like how he’s so critical of other journalists, demanding that they attain some level of perfection that he and his crew don’t even come close to attaining. But that said, I still enjoy reading Mike’s posts, even though I often disagree. I also learn new things here, and I enjoy the debates in the comments. I don’t like the atmosphere that Mike’s created here where dissenting views are “reported” as inappropriate. I think Mike should set a better example, but he doesn’t. He himself is hostile to his critics in the comments and in his posts. I think he can do better, and I hope my prodding has some sort of positive effect. I’d just like to see some fair, balanced, and nuanced approaches taken to the subjects that he and I care about. I’d also like to see Mike just admit what he believes about IP openly and honestly. I don’t get the secrecy. One thing I love about TorrentFreak is that they’re completely honest about where they stand. Mike isn’t the same way. It’s more important to me that he be honest about his beliefs, whatever they may be.
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So despite Torrentfreak and Techdirt having similar positions you’d rather rag on Masnick for not thinking the way you want him to think.
You’re an obsessed lunatic. Does your wife know you’re crushing on someone you repeatedly lie to?
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So despite Torrentfreak and Techdirt having similar positions you’d rather rag on Masnick for not thinking the way you want him to think.
Yes, we all know their positions are similar. I don’t care that someone is anti-IP or pro-piracy. I care that they’re not honest about it. I enjoy TF because they’re honest about their beliefs. They don’t mercilessly ridicule and attack everyone they don’t like. They present things in a more balanced fashion. TF doesn’t berate everyone else’s reporting when their own reporting is so terrible. TF doesn’t attempt to reach legal conclusions (prior restraint! due process! antitrust!) without having a grasp of the law or the facts. TD could learn a lot from TF.
You’re an obsessed lunatic.
You seem pretty obsessed yourself. Thanks, I’m flattered.
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You have a pretty distorted definition of “obsessed”. I’m not the one paying money just to be a contrary asshole.
Re: Re: Re:3 Constructive Criticism
The attitude you claim here is admirable. However, you seem to be rather more antagonistic towards Mike than this position would require. I admit that I don’t follow the comments that closely, but the responses of others suggest that you frequently post aggressive rebuttals, and almost never agree with him.
A few possibilities:
a) You actually do hate Mike, and wrote this argument as a self-serving justification.
b) You genuinely believe you’re being impartial, but are bad at it.
c) You actually are being impartial, and Mike is a dishonest shill.
Personally, I’m inclined to believe (d), “all of the above”. I think it’s quite likely that both you and Mike are more biased than you each claim to be, or even realize. This isn’t a zero-sum game, after all. You could both be wrong (factually or morally). Then again, so could I.
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It depends, really. If it’s news, factual and based on evidence that’s publicly available (ie: a court decision) there’s no such thing as privacy. I do have an issue when it involves petty, ordinary events (ie: celebritie’s private lives) but overall you shouldn’t give up facts for some ethereal privacy.
Also, you are confusing the privacy that Mike advocates for and the privacy the EU courts used. Mike defends that what you do online behind your account should be kept private and again, unless it’s part of a lawsuit and it’s damning evidence obtained with a proper warrant it should remain private.
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Lots of accurate information is private, Mike
Can you explain how giving an interview to a newspaper is private?
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The problem is that Google didn’t publish this information, so why are they responsible for it? Why is Google the focus of the law and why must they devote their resources to other people’s problems? How many times must it be explained that Google is not the internet.
In short, why not make the people who actually published the information take it down?
> yet you don’t seem to understand how something that is true and public at the time the comment was made can also be private.
FTFY. Of course, fixing it broke your reasoning, but that happens when you’re making public comments.
Whatever
I think that this is a lame article from an equally lame site by an even more lame writer.
Forget It
I wrote that comment years ago and I refuse to be associated with it any longer. I can put white-out** on paper so it’s up to Google to simulate that effect on the internet.
**white-out is trademarked as Liquid Paper
Yeah. You’re retarded.
Personal vs public interest
I can understand the wedding and death notices, if someone divorced or otherwise separated they might want to scrub all records that they had that particular spouse, ever meet a pair of people where one loathes the other.
As for death notices, there are some funny religious beliefs out there, and we are taught not to mock them.
But, having court decision forgotten is attacking the public interest. knowing that allows for proper due diligence before a deal.
Re: Personal vs public interest
“if someone divorced or otherwise separated they might want to scrub all records that they had that particular spouse,”
I think alimony courts might disagree with you a tad bit on that…It’s kinda important that they have accurate records on who married whom, on who divorced whom, don’t you think?
“As for death notices, there are some funny religious beliefs out there, and we are taught not to mock them.”
Which is why I believe not one single religion should be respected at all in the legal system, since to cave to the demands of one religion means having to cave to the demands of all religions. Apart from standard freedom of speech rights, that is.
As for us not mocking them – I’ll not mock them if they can stop saying I and all other non-believers are destined for some sort of unpleasant experience after we die, simply for not believing.
Re: Personal vs public interest
there are some funny religious beliefs out there, and we are taught not to mock them.
And why is that?
It’s not about erasing records, it’s about the right of being forgotten, of starting over. No one erases anything, they just don’t want some things to permanently show up when they google their names.
“I’m glad I grew up when there was no Internet. I made so many stupid things, and there is no record of it anywhere”. Think about this last sentence. Kids nowadays don’t have this liberty anymore. Internet doesn’t have to be the Big Brother of everyone. People make mistakes, they pay for it, they overcome them, so they don’t have to keep paying for them for all their lives.
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This restricts the free speech rights of Google, in that if I search for Person X Controversial Topic Y on Google, they can’t tell me what it is they can link to.
Also, about people in your generation not having this “liberty” anymore of not having records of their mistakes. They never did. If you did something stupid that was newsworthy, that ended up in the newspapers. All anyone has to do then is ask the newspaper company for their archives and they can see the stupid thing that you did.
People never did have and never should have the right to demand that speech about stupid actions they did in the past should be restricted, taken down or not linked to. Every single person on the planet does stupid things, you and I included. Part of growing up is learning to deal with these events and to move past them. Ever hear of the saying “Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it”?
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Can’t you see the difference? Of course there were newspapers, of course there were records. They just don’t haunt us for the rest of our lives. Yes, you can do all that and get the record or the newspapper paper, because they are not erased. Forgotten =/= Erased. Like in this case no one is erasing anything. But we have the right that Google doesn’t associate us permanently with that bad event as the first thing that come up when anybody searches our name. We don’t delete things, they will still be there, he just have the right of being “let alone”. It’s not of your business if (or how) I overcome (or have dealt with) my old problems. Big brother may sound interesting and tempting, but it’s awful.
(I double commented by mistake, can someone please delete the other one? Thanks).
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“But we have the right that Google doesn’t associate us permanently with that bad event”
No we don’t and we never should, since telling other entities not to associate us with bad events is restricting their free speech rights. Since I’m very interested in protecting my own speech rights, I’m forced to protect Google’s and any other search engines’ on this topic.
You’ve acknowledged that newspaper archives aren’t being deleted, so…what’s the harm with letting Google return relevant and correct results if I search for Person X Controversial Topic Y? At best here, all you’re doing is forcing someone to do a bit more legwork to get at the actual records, work that is and would be unnecessary if you’d let Google do it’s damned job.
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Actually we do. In Europe. Not even a matter of discussion 😉
Well, Google doesn’t talk, I find it awkward to fight for his free speech right. I would say it’s a question of right to information. No Google’s, but every people’s right to information. Still, it can be restrict, as long as the restriction is justified. Rights are always in conflict with each others, and everytime a judge or a parliament acts on such case, one right is restricted. In this case, it’s very clear to us in Europe which one should be restricted 🙂
Again, I’m failing to explain you the difference between having some old archived newspaper page with your name and event X, and event X being the first thing that comes in Google when someone searches for your name. Every single time your name comes associated with an old and outdated event that doesn’t have any public interest on it (anymore). And you can’t do anything about it? Does that sounds right?
Do you really thing they are similar situations?
Also, check Googles policy here:
https://www.google.pt/policies/faq/
They explain the evaluation process they do, between public interest vs the right to be forgotten.
I’m not sure the event X will not appear if you search PERSON NAME + EVENT X, but they will sure not appear if you search for the Person Name alone.
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Just to preface – I’m off to work after this, so I’m asking the other Techdirtians to carry on after me please?
“Actually we do. In Europe. Not even a matter of discussion ;)”
Yes, I’m in Europe too, and this means I’m affected. Notice also that you just keep going on about something that is embarrassing – what about controversial or illegal?
If we go by something that is just embarrassing and controversial but not illegal, let’s take one example I can think of off the top of my head. Prince Harry, from the British royal family, years ago went to a party dressed in a Nazi uniform and this got plastered all over the newspapers.
Stupid yes, embarrassing yes, but does he have the right to tell Google not to link to articles and photos if I search for “Prince Harry Nazi”? What if years in the future, a historian wants to write a biography on Harry, but thanks to this stupid law, any time he uses a search engine in Europe on these keywords, he can’t get the relevant information?
Now let’s think about illegal activities. What if a politician in an election campaign wants to try and bury some information they think harms their chances at being elected? To me, this is censorship, in that if I were in their constituency, I wouldn’t have access to all of the relevant data and thus being unable to make a truly informed decision.
Google may not be able to spot why exactly this information is being requested to be taken down.
Yes I looked at the FAQ, and I say Google shouldn’t have to make an evaluation like this. They don’t have and cannot have all of the data they would need in order to do it.
“I’m not sure the event X will not appear if you search PERSON NAME + EVENT X, but they will sure not appear if you search for the Person Name alone.”
“I’m not sure the event X will not appear if you search PERSON NAME + EVENT X, but they will sure not appear if you search for the Person Name alone.”
It will if the people using the Google search service consistently click on the embarrassing results whenever they search for the name alone. Google’s algorithms will notice this, and then prioritize those results to be closer and closer to the top of the page. In other words, it is the users who, independent of each other, cause this to happen.
“Every single time your name comes associated with an old and outdated event that doesn’t have any public interest on it (anymore). And you can’t do anything about it? Does that sounds right?”
So freakin’ what? Dem’s the breaks as I say. It’s life. Deal with it. People are naturally drawn to famous people, and naturally drawn more and more often to the mistakes, lies, embarrassing moments and illegal activities of famous people. You can’t stop that. If you do something that makes you famous, that means being in the public eye. You can’t stop it, because stopping it means infringing on the rights of everybody else.
You can certainly ask the search engine politely to drop the results, but to have them be obligated by law to do so?
Not only that, but the law is stupid, since it only applies to search engines within the EU. I can fire up a proxy or VPN, search on Google.ca or Google.com and get the results that Google.ie or Google.co.uk are forbidden to show. Therefore, the law is toothless, since it’s trivially easy to get around.
Not only that, but how far does the law extend, and where will it stop? What if I run a website that solely has links to news articles about embarrassing stories about celebrities? What if I’m told I should shut that down because those people are feeling embarrassed?
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I can’t go on either, I’ĺl return to answer you, later. Take care.
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Well, you do need to review this subject because there are a lot of things you say that are just imagination, and don’t correspond to the reality.
The EU court had this decision about a spanish person who had his assets sold 16 years ago to pay debts to social security. Why the hell does this have to be the first result everyone gets when searches his name nowadays? It was 16 years ago! Old story, private problems, absolute no public interest on it. The only question here is that you – or anyone – might want to know that just for the sake of having the possibility to know everything from everybody. Because Internet is considered to be the Big Brother you are used to, and you think you have the right to know all things from everybody. Actually you don’t. Private data is called private for some reason. And EU legislation is strict about privacy. In this case, the matter was outdated, it had happened many years ago, and there was no public interest on it (don’t mix public interest concept with pure gossip / intrigue).
So every case you bring about celebrities, state persons, politics, etc. is not under the same protection, they are not analogue cases. Neither are illegal activities.
@the people who talked about VPNs, proxies, and other ways around: That’s not the point. We ALL know that Google doesn’t have the original information, it just aglomerates information from websites, and that original information will not be erased from the websites. We also know there are many ways around to search for a person online. Again, the purpose of this is not erase public information, is to control private data that is no longer relevant, is outdated, doesn’t have public interest, and therefore the person has the right to have it forgotten.
@ all the people who don’t agree this should be handled by Google:
This was handled as a personal privacy case. The newspapper article doesn’t handle your personal information just because is has a piece with your name. They follow they own rules and they have (journalistic related) laws to fulfill too, of course. But usually a website won’t manage your personal information just because it refers your name in an article.
Google does. Google is exactly what law describes as a collector of personal data, and therefore it has to fulfill the obligations that everyone who handles personal data have. Simple as that.
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” Again, the purpose of this is not erase public information, is to control private data that is no longer relevant, is outdated, doesn’t have public interest, and therefore the person has the right to have it forgotten.”
This is a nonsequitor. If the intent is to enforce a “right to be forgotten,” then the intent is necessarily to “erase public information”.
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Nop. Information will still be there. It just avoids it to show up when someone googles you. It’s not quite the same thing, I think you can get it.
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it’s very clear to us in Europe which one is actually restrictad 🙁
FTFY.
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“Every single time your name comes associated with an old and outdated event that doesn’t have any public interest on it (anymore). And you can’t do anything about it? Does that sounds right?”
Yes, that sounds exactly right. If the “outdated” information really shouldn’t exist, then take it down where it exists. It doesn’t exist in a search engine — a search engine only points to it.
Targeting search engines to implement “the right to be forgotten” is just boneheaded on so many levels. It’s the wrong target.
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it isn’t, they do handle personal data, so they have to fulfill this obligations related to that. And this is not about erasing content. Jesus. Again: this is not a right to erase content. Neither is about deleting all outdated information because it’s outdated information. How did you come up with that?
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“they do handle personal data”
Not with their search engine, they don’t. They just index the web, let people search through their index, and provide a link to the pages resulting from that search. The actual personal data is on the page they link to.
“Again: this is not a right to erase content. Neither is about deleting all outdated information because it’s outdated information.”
Why do you think I don’t understand this? The underlying desire is clearly to delete “outdated” information, but they can’t actually do that because that would be a clear violation of other important EU principles. So, instead, they’re hypocritically trying to use a loophole to achieve the closest thing they can: to impose the burden of censorship of a third party instead of the people who are actually involved — the ones that are holding the data.
In the arguments for the RTBF they even pretty much admitted this outright: they were arguing that this isn’t censorship precisely because they are allowing the information to remain in the original places.
Besides being a totally dishonest argument, it doesn’t even make sense. Because they’re deliberately avoiding directly censoring the actual sites involved in no way means they aren’t engaging in censorship. They’re just being dishonest about how they are doing it.
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Well, accordingly to the law, they do handle personal data, no matter how it is collected. And accordingly with EU court too. You may disagree with it, but that’s where we are. The article in the website may have your name, but it does not manage private data of yours. Google does, by collecting your information from pretty much everywhere on the Internet. That’s not a third party. It’s not a third party just because they use bots to organize the information.
I strongly disagree with your theory. They do this because we have (as far as I can see) decent privacy protection laws. It’s a good thing, not bad.
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I agree that decent privacy protection laws are a good thing. I just disagree that the RTBF counts as a decent privacy protection law. I think it counts as an unjust case of legalized censorship.
But thank you, although I disagree with you, I do understand your position better.
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Neither does Google’s index! Published information is not private information!!!!!!!!!
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Personal data is always personal, no matter how many people/companies handle it, or if it is published or not. And the person who that personal data belongs to, has certain rights related to his data.
But don’t trust my word. Here, have fun:
Article 2
Definitions
For the purposes of this Directive:
(a) ‘personal data’ shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
(b) ‘processing of personal data’ (‘processing’) shall mean any operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data, whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording, organization, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking, erasure or destruction;
(c) ‘personal data filing system’ (‘filing system’) shall mean any structured set of personal data which are accessible according to specific criteria, whether centralized, decentralized or dispersed on a functional or geographical basis;
(d) ‘controller’ shall mean the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body which alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of processing are determined by national or Community laws or regulations, the controller or the specific criteria for his nomination may be designated by national or Community law;
(e) ‘processor’ shall mean a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body which processes personal data on behalf of the controller;
(f) ‘third party’ shall mean any natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body other than the data subject, the controller, the processor and the persons who, under the direct authority of the controller or the processor, are authorized to process the data;
(g) ‘recipient’ shall mean a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body to whom data are disclosed, whether a third party or not; however, authorities which may receive data in the framework of a particular inquiry shall not be regarded as recipients;
(h) ‘the data subject’s consent’ shall mean any freely given specific and informed indication of his wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed.
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You said “private“, not “personal”. Published information isn’t private, even when it’s personal. Citing the law doesn’t change that simple fact.
Google doesn’t index private information. The right to be forgotten has nothing to do with privacy.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Well, it’s true that I may have used “private” and “personal” in a not very distinct way. Partially because I’m not english native. I meant private as it belonged to his privacy. The decision use the “privacy” word a lot, just 2 examples:
“Directive 95/46 which, according to Article 1, has the object of protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data”.
“the data subject may oppose the indexing by a search engine of personal data relating to him where their dissemination through the search engine is prejudicial to him and his fundamental rights to the protection of those data and to privacy — which encompass the ‘right to be forgotten’ — override the legitimate interests of the operator of the search engine and the general interest in freedom of information.”
But, again, don’t take my word for it. Read the decision before you state this has nothing to do with privacy.
It does, it’s about privacy laws, it’s a decision based on the right to privacy of a citizen. You can disagree with the decision and how the court analyzed the case, but the court handled it as a privacy case.
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
It really has nothing to do with privacy. Nothing at all. As for the court’s ruling, they could say the sky is green, but it wouldn’t make it so.
Re: Re: Re:12 Re:
Well, that’s your opinion. But if you don’t explain, iyo, what is really about or why it isn’t about privacy, we will be here saying “it is” and “it isn’t” all night long.
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
Everyone understands why they made the decision. They just realize it’s stupid. It’s like the TSA policies in the U.S.; everyone understands why they banned nail clippers from planes. It’s because there’s a little blade on there. But it’s stupid since nobody, and I do mean nobody, is going to think to themselves “well, I would resist this guy, but I won’t because he has a piece of dull metal smaller than my finger.” Either the person was already going to comply, or they weren’t, but the nail clipper isn’t going to ever be the deciding factor.
It’s not a perfect analogy, because one is stupid due to a fundamental misunderstanding of technology and the other is stupid because it’s “security” entirely for show with no practical purpose. But they’re still both stupid.
So yes, they may have ruled that public information should be able to be hidden due to privacy laws. Good for them. They’re idiots.
Nobody has a “right to be forgotten.” If we did, then I could have my mother lobotomized so she’d stop telling my girlfriends about the time I pee’d the bed in 1st grade. Alas, that is not the case.
Let’s change reality because it’s “on the computer.” Good luck with that.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
2. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT what the ‘laws’ of europa (OR the US) ‘say’, THEY ARE WRONG as a matter of principle… YOU CAN’T just erase his story because you don’t like the outcome…
3. jeezus fucking kee-rist, can’t you see how this is DIRECTLY analogous to the USSR literally air-brushing their his story ? ? ?
4. as screwed up as OUR laws protecting free speech are becoming, they are GOLDEN compared to stupid fucking eurotards with their idiotic ‘hate speech’ and nazi-phobic laws RESTRICTING speech for NO GOOD END…
5. pearl-clutching scaredy cats who are afraid of their own shadow, AND THEN want to eliminate any mention of the FACT they are afraid of their own shadow are ANTI-FREE SPEECH, PERIOD…
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Funny how you don’t give a shit about what the laws say, and yet here you are discussing how right or wrong they are.
Ohh, the famous american argument for something you don’t agree to: “that is communist!”. I missed it already.
I tried to go a little deeper on both the law and this decision. In order to try to explain that details matter.
After all that, you came here with that text. Have you even read what I said?
It’s like If I was here complaining about how stupid americans are because they give everyone a gun, but I refuse to listen when someone tries to explain* me the inner details, historic (and constitutional) reasons, or that it doesn’t happen freely in every state (just an example, don’t take it too seriously), and I just keep shouting “it’s stupid, it’s american, what to expect…”
That’s where your argument level is. Congrats.
(*note: explaining things not to try to convince me, but just to tell me how it really is)
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Even the sites where the information is actually kept would be the wrong target. The United States pretty much has it right on this issue: if it’s not defamatory and not a violation of a person’s private space (such as, say, a picture taken through their bedroom window), then it’s OK to publish.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
I would find it objectionable if the censorship applied to the sites that actually hold the data as well — but at least doing it there would be honest. That’s what I mean about “the right target”.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
funny how it’s only google. Use something like duckduckgo and voila.
“But we have the right that Google doesn’t associate us permanently with that bad event”
It’s not erasing – it’s scrubbing. If you don’t want to be associated with stupidity – try not to do it online or/and in public sphere.
Re: Re: Re: How Google Works
Well that’s easy, because Google doesn’t do that, and they never did. So I guess we’re all happy now?
…no?
Let me explain. Google doesn’t permanently associate anyone with anything. When you search for something on Google, it returns the results that it thinks are most relevant. It uses several factors to decide “relevance”, including how well the result matches the query, the language of the result page, the general quality of the result (i.e. page-rank), and the age of the result.
Yes, that’s right. Google prioritizes new pages over old ones. Not by very much; general relevance still matters. If you search for “apple”, it will prefer the 8-year-old page about apples over the tweet from yesterday about oranges. But assuming the pages are otherwise equivalent, it will prefer the 2-month-old page about apples over the 8-year-old one.
Which brings me back to my original point. Results change. New pages appear, old ones become less important. The top hit for any celebrity is not the same as it was a year ago. It might not be the same as it was last week. The only difference between you and that celebrity is that there are fewer potential results for you, and thus your results change more slowly. But they do change. And there’s no reason to get the courts involved.
Problem: When searching for my name on Google, the first result is something bad.
Solution: Create content that is more relevant, and kick that embarrassing result down to page 2 where no one will ever see it.
Re: Re: Re:2 How Google Works
One more reason why this will not be used a lot. The case in court was from 16 years ago (!!!). The content was still there. Maybe the person just didn’t have any more personal data showing up on the web, and wanted to delete that one (that he never put there anyway).
I see what is your point, the EU just strongly disagrees with it. It’s not relevant how Google or their bots work. When it comes do personal data, you have rights over that data. Content changes only if there is newer content. By other words, it doesn’t actually change, just more content is added.
Creating (artificial?) content just to dissimulate the content you don’t want to appear is not a solution. You don’t have to give more of your personal data just to hide the data you don’t want there is the first place.
Either 1) this is considered a Right, defensible in court, so it’s irrelevant how Google works, it has to comply. Or 2) the State should have no business in how Google works, so your last hope is indeed your suggestion.
In EU it’s 1), in US it’s 2). You can either defend position 1) or position 2). But the fact that results change does not help in the discussion of how right or wrong is position 1.
Should people have the right over their personal data, in an extension that would allow them to ask Google to hide content in their name searches, when such content is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive for the purposes of the data Google collects?
That’s the question, in my dubious but best-i-can-do legalese xD
Re: Re: Re:3 How Google Works
The question remains: Why force Google to ignore the content? Why force the search engine into this situation? Why not ask the person actually hosting the actual content to remove it?
Re: Re: Re:4 How Google Works
Hi.
Please check my answer here too: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141006/02274528742/right-to-be-forgotten-hits-ny-times.shtml#c1140
Deleting content was never the point. I believe they kinda are trying to emulate the world previous to Google. Let’s say you had your assets sold to pay debts. That might be known publicly. In some countries it could happen that they publish the auction advert on a newspaper. The auction was public, your family and some neighborhoods might know about it. It was a bad phase of your life. Then you recovered. You have straighten out your life. Some people that knew you back then would still remember about your past problems, most of them didn’t care about them anyway. They had “forgotten”, but they still knew about it if asked. But it just wasn’t a relevant topic anymore. Most people you know afterwards didn’t know about that. But the records are there. If they go to search the seizures (I don’t know how it’s called in english) records or some debts records, they will find your name there. The information is there, kinda buried, but not deleted.
In a world after Google, this no longer works like that. People will google your name, and very old things can come up. (In this EU decision we are only talking about personal data information that nowadays is, accordingly to the court, “inaccurate, inadequate or irrelevant”.
So here you have two options:
Either you say Google changed the way things work, and you have to face every your mistake that is mentioned in the web, even if inaccurate, inadequate or irrelevant. Pay for your mistakes, handle it, grow up. (everyone’s opinion here but mine); Or you can say that on such cases, you do have the right to ask Google to hide that content (my and EU’s court opinion). You see, it’s not about the content itself. If it was a piece of newspapper, it could have followed every law about its publishing and to be perfectly legal. Absolutely no legal question about the criteria of the newspaper publishing it, everything by the book. And yet, I defend that after some time, under the mentioned conditions, you have the right not to have that content showing up just because someones googles your name. It’s not of their business, it was your personal life, personal problems. You can’t delete them from History (from the original content – from the records – from the newspapper), you don’t have that right – that would be censorship. You can just kind of buried in the past.
But anyone who really got into the trouble would get access to this history of yours, because it’s still there. You just deserve that is doesn’t show up in easy accessed Google for every single person who just checks you out of curiosity.
Re: Re: Re:5 How Google Works
“Either you say Google changed the way things work, and you have to face every your mistake that is mentioned in the web, even if inaccurate, inadequate or irrelevant.”
Correct. Would it be great if that embarrassing thing I did ten years ago just wasn’t mentioned anymore? Great for me, not so great for others. In order for this to work, their speech rights have to be curtailed.
Analogy time – Google is the librarian in the library. Information about that embarrassing moment in your life when it made the news is detailed in a few books scattered throughout the library. However, thanks to this law, the librarian, when asked “Which books do you know of talk about Person X Controversial Topic Y, and where are they located?”, is forbidden to answer that question. There, their right to tell me what it is they know, has been curtailed.
Instead of doing their job and searching for and indexing information that people search for, the librarian now has to spend time and resources processing these RTBF requests and trying to figure out whether or not to grant them.
We’ve already seen similar things happen with the DMCA, where Google now is being told “Link XYZ contains copyrighted material that I have the copyrights for, don’t index it” and Google has to spend insane resources to try and figure out whether to grant the demand. Most other companies would panic and just grant these requests, along with RTBF, in order to shield themselves from legal liability. The downside is that speech is being deleted.
For you to say that speech actually isn’t being deleted is actually worse. Oh it’s fine you say that no-one’s taking books and deleting the actual information on the page, but what Google has proven since its inception, is that information is useless and might as well not exist if no-one can find it. Not being allowed to return the correct results when doing a search (whether on a search engine or asking the librarian in a library) is just as bad, if not worse, than outright destroying the information itself.
Re: Re: Re:5 How Google Works
But they won’t. That’s the whole point. The Spanish guy who wanted to hide the 16-year-old foreclosure could have pushed it out of the #1 spot in 3 minutes. All he had to do was create a Google+ page! It would have taken maybe an hour or two to create enough relevant content to push the old irrelevant content down to page 2. And then we’re in the same situation as the real world: the records are still there if you go looking for them, but it’s not relevant any more, so it’s not the first thing that comes up.
Re: Re: Re:5 How Google Works
Google didn’t change anything. The internet did.
Google is just one of many ways to access the internet. The only way to emulate the world before Google would be to shut down the entire internet, because we’ve had search engines as long as we’ve had the internet – they go together.
To say that something exists but you can’t find it is the same as making it go away entirely. It’s blatant censorship both ways. If you’re fine with censoring Google search results, then you’re fine with deleting the original content – but you can’t because that’s against the law. Censoring Google is just an attempt to get around the law.
If it’s not against the law, then go after the offending content, not the thing pointing it out. All this law does is break Google from doing what it’s supposed to do. It makes the internet less useful for everyone on the planet for the benefit of one person.
Just like in real life, you have no right to control what other people know about you, think about you, or remember about you once that information is made public, because it impinges on the rights of others.
Re: Re: Re:3 How Google Works
“Content changes only if there is newer content. By other words, it doesn’t actually change, just more content is added.”
This is 100% not true. If Google indexes a site containing your information, then that site removes your information, Google’s indexes are updated accordingly. Search engines do their best to reflect the web as it exists now, not as it existed in history.
Re: Re: Re:3 How Google Works
No, because if those conditions are true, they don’t need to. That was my point. Maybe I didn’t make it clear enough.
If content is inaccurate or inadequate, then it should be fixed. If you don’t have access to the source, you can still publish more content explaining the problem. And note that if the information really is inaccurate and is harmful, you probably already have legal options via defamation laws.
If content is irrelevant, then Google wouldn’t show it. The top result for your name is the thing that Google believes is the most relevant content related to your name. So far, no one has argued that Google is intentionally messing this up.
If the only public information about a person is X, then that can’t possibly be “irrelevant”. It’s literally the only fact available. On the other hand, if there is public information about X, Y, and Z, then it’s reasonable to argue that X is irrelevant. But then there’s no reason to hide X: you just need to show Y and Z as the most relevant information.
I honestly have no idea what the “excessive” clause means, so I won’t tackle that.
The solution to speech you don’t like is more speech, not censorship. If you can successfully defeat negative speech by opposing it with your own, then you deserve to do so. But if the only way you can overcome negative speech is by disappearing it, then you admit its legitimacy.
Re: Re:
I don’t want my children to live in a world where it is so easy to censor things simply by coercing an uninvolved third party.
Can’t you see the difference? Of course there were newspapers, of course there were records. They just don’t haunt us for the rest of our lives. Yes, you can do all that and get the record or the newspapper paper, because they are not erased. Forgotten =/= Erased. Like in this case no one is erasing anything. But we have the right that Google doesn’t associate us permanently with that bad event as the first thing that come up when anybody searches our name. We don’t delete things, they will still be there, he just have the right of being “let alone”. It’s not of your business if (or how) I overcome (or have dealt with) my old problems. Big brother may sound interesting and tempting, but it’s awful.
Re: Re:
It’s not erased, just impossible to find using particular, relevant keywords.
Personal vs public interest
Some people think Google is the internet – morons.
These acts of censorship will continue until more people accept the need and value of decentralized, open source search engines like YaCy.
Could this herald the tipping point for the redecentralization movement?
You can test which names are "forgotten"
It is easy to see if Goolnik or Skamser were the causes of those articles being removed from Google’s index, just search the nytimes site with their names and see if you get hits on those articles. I tried it and they come up just fine, ergo they are not the ones being “forgotten.” Here are the searches, so you can do it too:
skamser: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+skamser
goolnik: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+goolnik
Re: You can test which names are "forgotten"
Again, it does not work on US google.com, only on Euro Google like .uk, .fr, etc. So try it again using a VPN.
Re: You can test which names are "forgotten"
Ah, you are correct. My bad.
VPN’ing over to europe, skamser no longer brings up that article while other unique names like Pichon Baldinu do bring it up. Same for goolnik.
Thanks for setting me straight.
It's not a "Right to be Forgotten"
It’s a “Right to hide the skeletons in the closet”.
Only Europeans could twist things so (not counting US three letter Agencies).
full of trolls
man this post is full of trolls
go back to mommies basement
Be careful what you wish for
The “right” to be forgotten is also the right to forget the Holocaust, slavery and all kinds of govt-sponsored mischief.
On the whole, individual rights are far more secure in a world where govts can’t sweep embarrassing things under a rug.
strange
“You can understand why people might not want their wedding announcements findable”
The actual marriage is public information. I wonder what kind of information was in the announcement that made them want to pull it, and how can a public announcement be revocable? Should it not be historical fact?
Re: strange
Here you have: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141006/02274528742/right-to-be-forgotten-hits-ny-times.shtml#c695
full doc: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130d5d175fdbfddfd4cd89013bdda104ae9a3.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4OaNmNe0?text=&docid=152065&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=401734
Right to be forgotten
Your search – “Adolf Hitler” – did not match any documents.
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Re: Right to be forgotten
“Your search – “Adolf Hitler” – did not match any documents.”
Ditto for Holocaust, Tiananmen Square, Argentina’s “disappeared people”, Mỹ Lai Massacre, CIA waterboarding, CIA overthrow of democratically-elected Iranian govt of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, fire-bombing of Dresden, “Lost Boys of Sudan”, “Boston Massacre” from the US revolutionary war, etc.
Well, if Adolf Hitler can prove his personal data is there without a good reason for it, because there is no public interest on it, he is not even a known person, he never did anything illegal or notorious, he might have a case.
Else, your example is just stupid.
Re: Re:
I was obviously exaggerating, but there’s a major problem with your list of exceptions:
Who decides what is “a good reason for it”? Who decides what is or isn’t in the “public interest”? (not the public, I expect)
As for “never did anything illegal or notorious” and not being a “known person”, what would you call a convicted pedophile and an embarrassed politician?
Re: Re: Re:
They are not exceptions. In order to be exceptions, you would need a law that stated, for example: “you have the right to ask google to delete your name from every old articles / news”. Then the law would create such exceptions: criminals, celebrities, and subjects of public interest can’t use this right.
If this is what you think it’s going on (I think most of you actually do), it’s just wrong. What the court did was allow a privacy law to be applied on a very specific case (not a celebrity, not a criminal, not even illegal). And it further said:
“Individuals have the right – under certain conditions – of ask search engines to remove links with personal information about them. This applies where the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive for the purposes of the data processing (para 93 of the ruling). The court found that in this particular case the interference with a person’s right to data protection could not be justified merely by the economic interest of the search engine. At the same time, the Court explicitly larified that the right to be forgotten is not absolute
but will always need to be balanced against other undamental rights, such as the freedom of expression and of the media (para 85 of the ruling). A case-by-case assessment
is needed considering the type of information in question, its sensitivity for the individual’s private life and the interest of the public in having access to that nformation. The role the person requesting the deletion plays in public life might also be relevant.
From here: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_protection_en.pdf
What many of you are doing here is just read the title, and forget about the content. “You can delete your information on certain conditions” – You don’t care about what conditions are those, and just read “in Europe they are allowing people to censorship their information on Google and government censorship should be about to return very soon”.
You don’t have to agree with it, you just could try to read it first.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Don’t be disingenuous. “Public interest” would be an exception to the rule that personal information be removed from Google’s index at the subject’s request. Information being made available for a “good reason” (whatever that means) would be another.
Absent public interest and whatever other reasons a court might rely on to determine whether a link should be presented (the exceptions), the prescribed action would be to delete the information at the user’s request.
Esentially, Google can’t refuse to delete the data in question without having “a good reason” to keep it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Sure, it would. But it isn’t. Deleting the link is the exception. Not delete it is the rule. Just check the conditions that have to be met in order to the request to be accepted.
A Proposal for Dealing with Such Censorship
Why doesn’t someone with a VPN start doing Google searches of blocked links, and then do European searches for names that appear in the censored material?
Those names using the European search that return nothing about the blocked link would indicate exactly who is trying to use censorship to cover up something.
Just having a web site showing both blocked links, and the names not showing up, would be creatively using the Streisand Effect to reduce the payoff for censorship.
Why can't people go to the source?
Once again, this isn’t about a person’s right to be forgotten- this is an attempt to penalize Google. Like I’ve said every time one of these articles come up, the right to be forgotten is directed at the search indexer (or card catalog, not the source. If people really wanted to be forgotten, they’d contact the newspaper directly and ask that the original article be removed. And what happens when the original article is deleted? That’s right- Google can’t index it.
And like before, the right to be forgotten seems to have no effect on other search sites like Bing. So tell me again how this order is supposed to make the Internet forget about a person?
And how does an EU or UK ruling have any power on US newspapers?
Re: Why can't people go to the source?
So what is the source? Have your read the court decision? What was based on?
If this was a “right to be erased” case, they would go directly to the font. It doesn’t go that far. It’s the right to be forgotten (aka not having an event that nowadays is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive to come up when someone googles your name). It’s not about the newspaper (or whatever) who published the story, it’s about any website that agglomerates information on a topic and that topic is you. That’s called personal data, and Google handles it, not the website/newspapper that has the piece of story you don’t like. No one will bother newspapers, just search engines because they easily can associate personal data of yours with your name. But you are only allowed to “hide” the content on very strict cases.
Forgotten – Kind of let things die by themselves. Not delete them, but neither give them the importance that they no longer have; right to not having your name related to events that nowadays are inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant. Example: The spanish guy who had his assets sold 16 years ago to pay his debts, and still that showed up in Google first results. The story will still be there if people search for it. But it won’t come out as the first (or last) thing when searching his name.
(If it were) Erased – A right where you would have the power to erase all or some content on the source itself. (Much stronger)
Re: Re: Why can't people go to the source?
You know that this information about the Spanish guy had to sell his assets to pay off his debts exists, but you don’t have the direct link to the article about it. You need it to counter lies claiming that the debt has never been repaid. How do you find it again? Search for it. Search returns nothing. But you know this information exists, you just can’t find it!
Oh wait! You remember where you found it now! Just type in the direct link and… the site has been redesigned and the original article has been moved to a new location. OK, just search for the article’s new location. No results. It’s OK because the original article wasn’t erased, it is still on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”.
What use is a search engine that does not return exactly what you are searching for? Should you have to write your own web spider to scour the entire internet manually to find the one document you are actually looking for? Should you have to visit every library on the planet in person and manually inspect every bookshelf to find a book you know exists but isn’t found in any card catalog? If nobody can find a document they are looking for, does the document actually exist? There is no proof!
Re: Re: Why can't people go to the source?
Wouldn’t the law be better applied by forcing the actual content owner to delist the content from Google (a very easy thing to do), rather than forcing Google to delist it?
At least then the impetus is on the offender, and not some unrelated third party.
The current Internet is rotten.
Okay guys please keep this comment private … you got it P-R-I-V-A-T-E this is confidential and should not be spoken outside of this article
I absolutely hate mustard , I’m not sure why maybe it’s the color the smell is pretty nauseating as well and I can’t get the thought of the way it cakes in the corners of some peoples mouths .. but keep this quiet and don’t tell anyone .. ok !! Thanks.