Even If Google Could Improve Its Recommendations, Is It The Government's Job To Tell It To Do So?

Legal Issues

from the seems-troubling dept

There were reports a few weeks ago that the European Commission has reopened its antitrust investigation into Google. The main issue is how Google promotes certain (usually internal) results in so-called “answer boxes” in a way that may hurt other sites. We’ve been skeptical of the idea of European bureaucrats deciding what Google’s search results should look like, but earlier this year, it appeared that a settlement had been reached in which Google would point to competitors’ results in some cases.

Against this backdrop, a few organizations, led by Yelp and TripAdvisor have created a somewhat fascinating site and tool called Focus On The User — a play on Google’s own core philosophy of “focus on the user and all else will follow.” The site makes a very compelling argument that when Google is returning opinions (i.e., ratings) rather than factual answers, that it could do a much better job than just pointing to results from Google+. That is, if you do a search on “best restaurants in San Francisco” Google will show you results as rated by Google+ user reviews.

The Focus on the User site shows that rather than just relying on Google’s own data, users would benefit greatly if Google used its own search algorithm to pull in results from reviews elsewhere. In short, where you might see a box up top with seven to ten reviews (all linking to Google pages), Yelp and TripAdvisor are arguing that if you just used Google’s “organic” search algorithm to find the most relevant review pages, consumers get a much better experience. And they have a fair amount of data to back that up, showing a greater number of clicks in such a box (which you can test yourself via the site).

As noted above, the results are compelling. Using Google’s own algorithm to rank all possible reviews seems like a pretty smart way of doing things, and likely to give better results than just using Google’s (much more limited) database of reviews. But here’s the thing: while I completely agree that this is how Google should offer up reviews in response to “opinion” type questions, I still am troubled by the idea that this should be dictated by government bureaucrats. Frankly, I’m kind of surprised this isn’t the way Google operates, and it’s a bit disappointing that the company doesn’t just jump on this as a solution voluntarily, rather than dragging it out and having the bureaucrats force it upon them.

So while the site is fascinating, and the case is compelling, it still has this problem of getting into a very touchy territory where we’re expecting government’s to design the results of search engines. It seems like Yelp, TripAdvisor and others can make the case to Google and the public directly that this is a better way to do things, rather than having the government try to order Google to use it.

Filed Under: antitrust, eu, government, recommendations, regulators, search
Companies: google, tripadvisor, yelp

Analysis Suggests More Than Half Of Google & Microsoft's Patents Likely Invalid Thanks To The Supreme Court

Patents

from the good-news dept

Over the last few months, since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Alice v. CLS Bank, we’ve been noting the good news that the courts seem to be interpreting the ruling to invalidate a ton of software patents. Even some trolls have decided to just give up after seeing how the Alice ruling is being interpreted.

A new analytical study of patents held by big tech companies, done by ktMINE, suggests that more than half of Google and Microsoft’s patents are invalid under Alice. The biggest loser of all, however, may be Oracle, with an astounding 76% of all of its patents vulnerable to the ruling. Twenty five companies are listed — and there are some interesting ones. Rockstar — which is a patent troll “privateer” set up by Microsoft and Apple has 31% of patents at risk. Intellectual Ventures has 24% of its patents at risk (I would have expected more). IBM — which has a tremendous patent portfolio — has 49% at risk.

The article suggests that this may have a major impact as these companies lose “vitally important strategic assets,” but that’s generally almost entirely bogus. Other than for the trolls, where these patents are their only “asset” (if you can call them that), for operating companies, patents have always been much more of a hindrance than a benefit. Many of the companies in the list have a huge patent portfolio mainly for defensive, rather than offensive reasons, and the patents have little to do with day to day operations. They have almost no impact on how the company is actually innovating or growing. In fact, as we’ve seen, patents are generally only useful for companies that are on the downswing, as they lash out at innovators who are on the upswing. If there were a real concern here, it’s likely that we would have seen it in the stock prices of these tech companies — but most of the companies on the list shrugged off the decision (or are even happy about it) because they can just focus on innovating, rather than bogus, wasteful lawsuits.

In fact, it might make for an interesting study to look at the impact of the Alice decision on the stock prices of these companies, and note how little the patent portfolios they hold are really worth, given the likelihood that so many are invalid.

Filed Under: business methods, patents, software, subject matter, supreme court, tech, validity
Companies: alice, cls bank, google, ibm, intellgectual ventures, microsoft, oracle, rockstar

FUD: Former FBI Guy Lies, Claiming New Mobile Encryption Would Have Resulted In Dead Kidnap Subject

Say That Again

from the uh,-no dept

Yesterday, we wrote about law enforcement freaking out over the announcements from both Apple and Google that they’d start encrypting phones by default, better protecting data on those phones from anyone who wants it — whether government/law enforcement or hackers. We noted, oddly, that former FBI guy Ronald Hosko had showed up in articles in both the Washington Post and the WSJ spewing a bunch of FUD about it. In the WSJ:

The level of privacy described by Apple and Google is “wonderful until it’s your kid who is kidnapped and being abused, and because of the technology, we can’t get to them,” said Ronald Hosko, who left the FBI earlier this year as the head of its criminal-investigations division. “Who’s going to get lost because of this, and we’re not going to crack the case?”

In the Washington Post:

Ronald T. Hosko, the former head of the FBI?s criminal investigative division, called the move by Apple ?problematic,? saying it will contribute to the steady decrease of law enforcement?s ability to collect key evidence ? to solve crimes and prevent them. The agency long has publicly worried about the ?going dark? problem, in which the rising use of encryption across a range of services has undermined government?s ability to conduct surveillance, even when it is legally authorized.

?Our ability to act on data that does exist .?.?. is critical to our success,? Hosko said. He suggested that it would take a major event, such as a terrorist attack, to cause the pendulum to swing back toward giving authorities access to a broad range of digital information.

This is just blatant fear mongering, and not even close to realistic. But the Washington Post doubled down and let Hosko write an entire (and entirely bogus) story about how he helped save a kidnapped man from murder earlier this year and “with Apple’s and Google’s new encryption rules, he would have died.” He accurately writes about a kidnapping in North Carolina, and how law enforcement tracked down the perpetrators, including by requesting and getting “the legal authority to intercept phone calls and text messages.” Of course, here’s the thing: nothing in this new encryption changes that. Transmitted content is unrelated to the encryption of stored content on the phones. It’s the stored content that is being encrypted. It’s kind of scary that a supposed “expert” like Hosko doesn’t seem to comprehend the difference.

Either way, he insists that the encryption would have prevented this (it wouldn’t). His story originally said:

Last week, Apple and Android announced that their new operating systems will be encrypted by default. That means the companies won?t be able to unlock phones and iPads to reveal the photos, e-mails and recordings stored within.

It also means law enforcement officials won?t be able to look at the range of data stored on the device, even with a court-approved warrant. Had this technology been used by the conspirators in our case, our victim would be dead. The perpetrators would likely be freely plotting their next revenge attack.

After some people pointed out how very, very, very wrong this is, Hosko or the Washington Post “updated” the story, but still makes the same basic claims:

Last week, Apple and Google announced that their new operating systems will be encrypted by default. Encrypting a phone doesn?t make it any harder to tap, or ?lawfully intercept? calls. But it does limit law enforcement?s access to a data, contacts, photos and email stored on the phone itself.

Had this technology been in place, we wouldn?t have been able to quickly identify which phone lines to tap. That delay would have cost us our victim his life.The perpetrators would likely be freely plotting their next revenge attack.

Except, even the update is not true. As the AP’s Ted Birdis notes, the affidavit in the case shows that the FBI used phone toll records and wiretaps to figure out the case, and didn’t get access to any phones “until after [the] victim [was] safe.”

In other words, Hosko’s story is pure FUD. The new moves by these companies would not have meant the guy died. It wouldn’t have impacted the story at all.

Meanwhile, as a massive post by Julian Sanchez notes, phone encryption products have been on the market for a while and if it was such a big problem we’d already know about it, but so far it’s been pretty limited. In the entire US in 2013, there were nine cases where police claimed that encryption stymied their investigations. Furthermore, in the vast majority of cases where they came up against encryption, they were still able to crack it. So… the impact here is minimal.

But that apparently won’t stop lies from the likes of Ronald Hosko.

Update: And… it appears that the Washington Post edited the story again to now make it accurate, but which also disproves the entire point of the story. Now the basic story is “we saved this guy… and mobile encryption would have done nothing to stop it, but it’s a bad bad thing anyway.” If Hosko couldn’t get the very basics right, how could he be considered a credible person discussing this issue?

Filed Under: encryption, fbi, fud, kidnapping, mobile encryption, ronald hosko
Companies: apple, google

Law Enforcement Freaks Out Over Apple & Google's Decision To Encrypt Phone Info By Default

Overhype

from the we're-all-gonna-die dept

Last week, we noted that it was good news to see both Apple and Google highlight plans to encrypt certain phone information by default on new versions of their mobile operating systems, making that information no longer obtainable by those companies and, by extension, governments and law enforcement showing up with warrants and court orders. Having giant tech companies competing on how well they protect your privacy? That’s new… and awesome. Except, of course, if you’re law enforcement. In those cases, these announcements are apparently cause for a general freakout about how we’re all going to die. From the Wall Street Journal:

One Justice Department official said that if the new systems work as advertised, they will make it harder, if not impossible, to solve some cases. Another said the companies have promised customers “the equivalent of a house that can’t be searched, or a car trunk that could never be opened.”

Andrew Weissmann, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation general counsel, called Apple’s announcement outrageous, because even a judge’s decision that there is probable cause to suspect a crime has been committed won’t get Apple to help retrieve potential evidence. Apple is “announcing to criminals, ‘use this,’ ” he said. “You could have people who are defrauded, threatened, or even at the extreme, terrorists using it.”

The level of privacy described by Apple and Google is “wonderful until it’s your kid who is kidnapped and being abused, and because of the technology, we can’t get to them,” said Ronald Hosko, who left the FBI earlier this year as the head of its criminal-investigations division. “Who’s going to get lost because of this, and we’re not going to crack the case?”

That Hosko guy apparently gets around. Here he is freaking out in the Washington Post as well:

Ronald T. Hosko, the former head of the FBI?s criminal investigative division, called the move by Apple ?problematic,? saying it will contribute to the steady decrease of law enforcement?s ability to collect key evidence ? to solve crimes and prevent them. The agency long has publicly worried about the ?going dark? problem, in which the rising use of encryption across a range of services has undermined government?s ability to conduct surveillance, even when it is legally authorized.

?Our ability to act on data that does exist .?.?. is critical to our success,? Hosko said. He suggested that it would take a major event, such as a terrorist attack, to cause the pendulum to swing back toward giving authorities access to a broad range of digital information.

Think of the children! And the children killed by terrorists! And just be afraid! Of course, this is the usual refrain any time there’s more privacy added to products, or when laws are changed to better protect privacy. And it’s almost always bogus. I’m reminded of all the fretting and worries by law enforcement types about how “free WiFi” and Tor would mean that criminals could get away with all sorts of stuff. Except, as we’ve seen, good old fashioned police/detective work can still let them track down criminals. The information on the phone is not the only evidence, and criminals almost always leave other trails of information.

No one has any proactive obligation to make life easier for law enforcement.

Orin Kerr, who regularly writes on privacy, technology and “cybercrime” issues, announced that he was troubled by this move, though he later downgraded his concerns to “more information needed.” His initial argument was that since the only thing these moves appeared to do was keep out law enforcement, he couldn’t see how it was helpful:

If I understand how it works, the only time the new design matters is when the government has a search warrant, signed by a judge, based on a finding of probable cause. Under the old operating system, Apple could execute a lawful warrant and give law enforcement the data on the phone. Under the new operating system, that warrant is a nullity. It?s just a nice piece of paper with a judge?s signature. Because Apple demands a warrant to decrypt a phone when it is capable of doing so, the only time Apple?s inability to do that makes a difference is when the government has a valid warrant. The policy switch doesn?t stop hackers, trespassers, or rogue agents. It only stops lawful investigations with lawful warrants.

Apple?s design change one it is legally authorized to make, to be clear. Apple can?t intentionally obstruct justice in a specific case, but it is generally up to Apple to design its operating system as it pleases. So it?s lawful on Apple?s part. But here?s the question to consider: How is the public interest served by a policy that only thwarts lawful search warrants?

His “downgraded” concern comes after many people pointed out that by leaving backdoors in its technology, Apple (and others) are also leaving open security vulnerabilities for others to exploit. He says he was under the impression that the backdoors required physical access to the phones in question, but if there were remote capabilities, perhaps Apple’s move is more reasonable.

Perhaps the best response (which covers everything I was going to say before I spotted this) comes from Mark Draughn, who details “the dangerous thinking” by those like Kerr who are concerned about this. He covers the issue above about how any vulnerability left by Apple or Google is a vulnerability open to being exploited, but then makes a further (and more important) point: this isn’t about them, it’s about us and protecting our privacy:

You know what? I don?t give a damn what Apple thinks. Or their general counsel. The data stored on my phone isn?t encrypted because Apple wants it encrypted. It?s encrypted because I want it encrypted. I chose this phone, and I chose to use an operating system that encrypts my data. The reason Apple can?t decrypt my data is because I installed an operating system that doesn?t allow them to.

I?m writing this post on a couple of my computers that run versions of Microsoft Windows. Unsurprisingly, Apple can?t decrypt the data on these computers either. That this operating system software is from Microsoft rather than Apple is beside the point. The fact is that Apple can?t decrypt the data on these computers is because I?ve chosen to use software that doesn?t allow them to. The same would be true if I was posting from my iPhone. That Apple wrote the software doesn?t change my decision to encrypt.

Furthermore, he notes that nothing Apple and Google are doing now on phones is any different than tons of software for desktop/laptop computers:

I?ve been using the encryption features in Microsoft Windows for years, and Microsoft makes it very clear that if I lose the pass code for my data, not even Microsoft can recover it. I created the encryption key, which is only stored on my computer, and I created the password that protects the key, which is only stored in my brain. Anyone that needs data on my computer has to go through me. (Actually, the practical implementation of this system has a few cracks, so it?s not quite that secure, but I don?t think that affects my argument. Neither does the possibility that the NSA has secretly compromised the algorithm.)

Microsoft is not the only player in Windows encryption. Symantec offers various encryption products, and there are off-brand tools like DiskCryptor and TrueCrypt (if it ever really comes back to life). You could also switch to Linux, which has several distributions that include whole-disk encryption. You can also find software to encrypt individual documents and databases.

In short, he points out, the choice of encrypting our data is ours to make. Apple or Google offering us yet another set of tools to do that sort of encryption is them offering a service that many users value. And shouldn’t that be the primary reason why they’re doing stuff, rather than benefiting the desires of FUD-spewing law enforcement folks?

Filed Under: 4th amendment, encryption, law enforcement, orin kerr, phones, privacy, security
Companies: apple, google

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp: Still Failing To Understand The Internet After 20 Years Of Flops

Failures

from the profound-social-cost dept

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has a surprisingly long — and stunningly unsuccessful — history of trying to become a major force in the Internet world. This goes all the way back to 1993, when it rather presciently bought an online company called Delphi Internet Services. Unfortunately, after that smart early move, News Corp clearly had no idea how to build on the community that formed around the company, and Delphi was soon completely eclipsed by AOL.

In 2005, News Corp had an even bigger chance to establish itself as the leading Internet company when it bought MySpace. For a while, MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the world, and surpassed Google as the most-visited Web site. But again, News Corp managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: MySpace was eclipsed by Facebook, and in 2011 News Corp sold the site for $35 million — rather less than the $580 million it had paid for it six years earlier.

It is against that background of an apparent inability to understand the basic dynamics of the online world, and how to make money there, that we have the following press release from News Corp:

Coming from a global media organization that has a dominant market position in several countries, that’s a little rich. But it gets better:

Google doesn’t “aggregate content”: its main search engine provides links to pages based on their popularity, while Google News uses snippets that link to the full article on the publisher’s site (with no advertising on the Google News page.) As for the “commercial damage”, Techdirt has written several times about the fact that publishers are at liberty to withdraw from Google’s index if they really don’t like it, as well as the fact that those who do so soon come back when they find their traffic falls dramatically.

But that misunderstanding about Google’s non-existent “aggregation” is nothing compared to the hypocrisy of claiming that there is a “profound social cost” to Google’s actions. Many would say that the social cost of News Corp’s large-scale phone hacking in the UK was rather more profound:

Completely indifferent to this kind of social cost, News Corp would have us focus instead on its key concern here: the claim that Google is “undermining the basic business model of professional content creators.” This framing helps explain why News Corp managed to destroy two thriving Internet communities all those years ago.

The key to understanding News Corp’s persistent online failure is its blinkered view that only “professional content creators” count, and its evident contempt for creators who are not “professional”. Central to both Delphi and MySpace were the contributions from the community of users — the posts, the comments, the chat sessions, the pictures etc. If its corporate culture regards these of little value, News Corp was almost guaranteed to mis-manage and undermine those early online investments.

If you want some amusement, it’s worth reading the News Corp CEO’s letter in full, to see how he rails against “the unlawful and unsavoury content that surfaces after the simplest of searches,” and the fact that “the value of serious content has been commodified by Google.” Ironically, the one area where the News Corp letter has some faint praise for the Internet giant — “Google has been remarkably successful in its ability to monetize its users” — is also arguably where Google’s immense power really is deeply problematic.

As many critics have pointed out, Google’s business model is based on obtaining as much information about its users as possible — what News Corp calls “impressively precise data about users and content usage” — and then selling that knowledge to advertisers in various ways. Had News Corp’s CEO warned about this “commoditization” of personal data, his case against Google would have been stronger, especially in a European context where online privacy is a key concern. But that would have required rather more understanding of the Internet world than News Corp has ever been able to muster.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: aggregation, blame, internet, robert thomson, rupert murdoch
Companies: google, news corp

New Company Transparency Reports Help Quantify DMCA Abuse

Copyright

from the it's-a-widespread-problem dept

It’s a sign of the times that online companies? transparency reports are starting to include a new section: the Hall of Shame. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is the latest to do so, highlighting examples of copyright and trademark overreach by prominent figures like Janet Jackson, as well as more local businesses, organizations, and individuals attempting to silence criticism and other noninfringing speech. It even highlighted one example we’ve written about?and even dedicated a short video to?in which a baked goods company misused trademark to go after bloggers talking about derby pie, a common regional dessert in the Southern U.S. And WordPress is only the latest company to name-and-shame takedown abusers?the Wikimedia Foundation made a major splash last month when it highlighted the copyright saga behind a notorious monkey selfie.

We’ve kept up a Takedown Hall of Shame of our own for years. But these cases of egregious abuse tell only part of the story, and transparency reports also help call attention to a more subtle issue: a large percentage of takedown requests that do not result in content removal. That is to say, services routinely receive large numbers of bogus takedown demands.

There’s a real trend here. According to the latest numbers, Twitter does not comply with nearly 1 in 4 takedown notices it receives; Wikimedia complies with less than half; and WordPress complies with less than two-thirds. Each organization explains in its report that the notices with which they don’t comply are either incomplete or abusive.

When companies choose not to take down content because the notice is abusive, that’s a way of standing with their users, and it’s a significant decision. The bargain in the DMCA is straightforward: as long as services comply with takedown notices that meet the statutory requirements, they’re granted a “safe harbor” from any legal liability for copyright infringement that might otherwise arise from their hosting of user content. This had led some companies to take the short-sighted approach of removing all content for which they receive a takedown request, even if the request is defective or the content is obviously non-infringing. Since the law was enacted a decade and a half ago, some people have used the takedown mechanism as a censorship tool?sending careless or fraudulent notices in an attempt to silence lawful speech, and hoping that online services will comply just to stay in that safe harbor. And although the DMCA includes a mechanism to punish certain fraudulent takedown requests, the provision has proven difficult to enforce.

In other words, there’s a lopsided legal incentive that frequently results in services taking down non-infringing speech. The companies that stand up to bogus requests deserve kudos for doing so, and transparency reports are a good place to highlight that user-friendly behavior while also providing data about how often people are trying to abuse the DMCA.

The data from the transparency reports also supports the common understanding that users send counter-notices in only a relatively tiny number of cases. For example, Automattic reports that it got only 44 counter-notices for the 3,630 takedown notices that it received. After a short waiting period, a company can restore content for which it has received a valid counter-notice without losing its safe harbor protection. This is an important way for users to restore their non-infringing speech to public view.

Supporters of the status quo argue that the low rate of counter-notice means that most notices legitimately target infringement. But that suggestion doesn’t take into account how confusing and difficult the counter-notice process can be, and the fact that many users are intimidated by the requirement that they agree to be sued in federal court in case the rightsholder wants to claim copyright infringement (even though this is already true for users who are subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. federal courts). Users also fear the massively disproportionate statutory damages available to copyright claimants and the significant expense of defending even a winning copyright case, and allow themselves to be silenced rather than facing the expense and risk of vindicating their speech in courts.

The notice-and-takedown process is supposed to balance the interests of rightsholders, online platforms, and the general public, and transparency reports are an important mechanism to verify that’s happening. The numbers paint a troubling picture. Across the Web, we’ve seen report after report that the number of takedown notices sent to online services is skyrocketing. These three latest transparency reports support that notion, with Twitter in particular reporting a nearly 40% increase in just six months.

Taken together with the number of bogus takedowns and the rarity of counter-notices, it’s clear that the task of defending free speech is increasingly falling on online services.  The notice-and-takedown system unfortunately provides yet another example of how aggressive mechanisms of copyright enforcement are abused to censor legitimate content. We applaud those service providers who stand up to this abuse on behalf of their users.

Cross-posted from Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: abuse, censorship, copyright, dmca, transparency, transparency reports
Companies: automattic, google, tumblr, wikimedia foundation

Another Actor From 'Innocence Of Muslims' Sues Google Over Copyright Claim… Via Same Lawyer As Cindy Garcia

Copyright

from the building-a-business,-huh? dept

Nothing much has happened lately in the bizarre legal case of actress Cindy Lee Garcia had against Google. If you don’t recall, Garcia was one of the actresses who appeared in the “short film” called The Innocence of Muslims that became the center of a big story not so long ago for being incredibly insulting to many Muslims. Garcia claimed that she was duped into appearing in the film by its creator Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (who goes under a variety of names, including Sam Bacile). But, more importantly, she claimed that she had a copyright on her appearance, and thus could issue a takedown to make it disappear. Going against pretty much all settled law on the subject, the 9th Circuit Appeals court, lead by Judge Alex Kozinski agreed with her take, upending years of basic copyright law (even the Copyright Office has said she has no copyright claim). After lots of complaints, Kozinski doubled down on his original ruling, but added a couple of “outs” for a district court to fix his ridiculous interpretation (mainly by saying “fair use.”) Either way, Kozinski ordered Google to take down the video (and originally put a very questionable gag order on the company about it).

Garcia’s lawyer, Cris Armenta then accused Google of being in contempt of court by basically misrepresenting everything Google had done. That strategy failed, as the court rejected Armenta’s attempt.

However, it appears Armenta isn’t done with Google yet. She’s found yet another actor from Innocence of Muslims, a guy named Gaylord Flynn, and convinced him to file yet another copyright lawsuit against Google over the film. Notably, the accusation is not about the film being on YouTube (since Google took all those down), but about the fact that doing searches on Google one can find copies of the film via other sites, including various torrent sites and also other video streaming sites like LiveLeak and DailyMotion. The fact that those other sites are not being sued kinda says a lot about what’s happening here.

It appears that Armenta and/or Flynn hired one of the popular takedown request companies out there, DMCA solutions, to demand Google remove all these links from its search results. Google turned down the requests, and voila, Armenta gets to file another lawsuit against Google, based on the same ridiculous interpretation of copyright law that Garcia used, that merely appearing in the film gives one a copyright interest. I get the feeling this won’t be the last such lawsuit either.

Filed Under: alex kozinski, cindy garcia, cindy lee garcia, copyright, cris armenta, gaylord flynn, innocence of muslims, nakoula basseley nakoula, sam bacile
Companies: google

Google Shuts Down Stewart Baker's Faux Attempt To Delist Techdirt's Posts About Him

Failures

from the a-stupid-law-begets-stupid-outcomes dept

If you’ll recall, one of the NSA’s (and TSA, DHS, etc.) foremost apologists, Stewart Baker, decided to highlight the ridiculousness of Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling by sending in a few requests of his own. One of the links targeted by Baker’s “for demonstration purposes only” requests was the tag “Stewart Baker” here at Techdirt.

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=stewart+baker

Reason this link violates the right to be forgotten:

This link is inappropriate. It compiles stories making many distorted claims about my political views. Political views are a particularly sensitive form of personal data. The stories are written by men who disagree with me, and they are assembled for the purpose of making money for a website, a purpose that cannot outweigh my interest in controlling the presentation of sensitive data about myself.

While Baker probably wouldn’t have been too terribly bothered if Google “forgot” Techdirt’s posts, the real point of his academic exercise was to probe for responses from the search giant. Baker didn’t do anything to game the system, clearly stated he was an American citizen and provided a copy of his ID as required.

The end result? Nothing that Baker challenged was removed, but the responses show that Google is at least following up on “right to be forgotten” requests from extra-jurisdictional requesters, rather than simply telling them the law doesn’t apply to them.

Would Google honor a takedown request made by a person who wasn’t a UK or EU national? The answer appears to be yes. Google’s response does not mention my nationality as a reason for denying my requests. This is consistent with Europe’s preening view that its legal “mission civilisatrice” is to confer privacy rights on all mankind. And it may be the single most important point turned up by this first set of hacks, because it means that lawyers all around the world can start cranking out takedown requests for Belorussian and Saudi clients who don’t like the way they look on line.

That’s not a promising development. Google may not be enforcing anything but the letter of the law, but the examination of requests coming from outside the ruling’s jurisdiction means Google is also somewhat acquiescing to the spirit of the ruling. But when it came to delisting information, Google drew the line for reasons unrelated to requester origin.

In an effort to see whether Google would let me get away with blatant censorship of my critics, I asked for deletion of a page from Techdirt that seems to be devoted to trashing me and my views…

To American ears, such a claim is preposterous, but under European law, it’s not. Google, thank goodness, still has an American perspective: “Our conclusion is that the inclusion of the news article(s) in Google’s search results is/are – with regard to all the circumstances of the case we are aware of – still relevant and in the public interest.” If I had to bet, I’d say that this rather vague statement is the one Google uses when other, more pointed reasons to deny relief don’t work. But the reference to this page as a “news article” suggests that Google may be using a tougher standard in evaluating takedown requests for news media, a term that applies, at least loosely, to Techdirt.

It appears that Google is still very hesitant to remove anything even “loosely” related to news media (a backhanded compliment from Baker!), which is good news. Not that Baker’s quick “hack” approaches anything near empirical research, but at least in terms of boilerplate responses, Google seems to defer to the public interest.

There’s no way to tell if that balance would shift more if the requester was actually European, and it would seem from early reports that newsworthy “right to be forgotten requests” are an exercise in futility even when they do result in delisting orders. Hitting news media with requests has only resulted in new news about requester’s actions/words he or she wants buried and, possibly more importantly, new articles, seeing as Google appears to be more protective of recent news.

I’m having trouble finding stuff in my search history that is sufficiently inaccurate or outdated, especially now that we know Google is treating professional activities and news as per se relevant (at least if it’s “recent,” whatever that means).

The RTBF is still a horrible idea that can only be implemented badly, and it will either get worse as more people find ways to game the system, or simply fall into disrepair as more people (especially anyone considered by Google to be a “public figure”) find it nearly impossible to bury past behavior. Like many other internet-targeted rulings, the idea behind it is (somewhat) noble, but the premise is utterly flawed and the actual deployment a complete farce. Google (and other search engines) are in an unenviable situation for the forseeable future, forced to comply with a law that simply can’t be complied with.

Filed Under: censorship, europe, right to be forgotten, stewar baker
Companies: google

Chinese ISP Sued By User Over Censorship Of Google Services

Legal Issues

from the very-bold,-but-how-wise? dept

We wrote recently about evidence that China was deploying a sophisticated man-in-the-middle attack against Google for users of the country’s education network. That’s a reminder that for everyone else there, Google is just blocked completely. You might think there’s not much ordinary people can do about that, but an Internet user in China has taken the unusual step of suing his ISP, China Unicom, because of his inability to access Google services, as the New York Times reports:

As that points out, the censorship is mandated by the Chinese government, which places the ISP in an awkward position:

However, the worry must be that the relevant authorities might not find Wang’s decision to draw attention to online censorship in this way quite so funny. Let’s hope he doesn’t end up paying for his bold move over and above his legal costs.

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Filed Under: censorship, china, filtering, isp
Companies: google