Thomas Goolnik Gets Google To Forget Our Story About Him Getting Google To Forget Stories About Thomas Goolnik

Free Speech

from the sorry-thomas dept

You’ll recall, of course, that prior to the GDPR, there was a big case against Google in the EU that created, out of thin air, a “right to be forgotten” (perhaps, more accurately, “a right to be delinked”) saying that for certain classes of information that showed up in Google’s search index, it should be treated as personal data that had to be delinked from that user’s name as no longer relevant. This never made any sense at all. A search result is not like out-of-date customer database info, yet that’s how the Court of Justice in the EU treated it. Unfortunately, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect earlier this year, the “right to be forgotten” was even more officially coded into law. We’ve noted recently, there have been a few attempts to use the GDPR to delete public information on American sites, and now we at Techdirt have been hit with what appears to be just such an attempt.

This particular attempt goes back to some previous attempts under the pre-GDPR “right to be forgotten” setup. We need to dig into the history a bit to understand the details. You see, soon after the floodgates opened on delinking names from Google, we wrote about an article in the NY Times discussing how five of its articles had been delinked via RTBF claims. It was not 100% clear who had made the requests, but we did highlight some of the names and stories, including one where we called the removal “questionable.” It involved a NY Times article from 2002 about a legal action by the FTC which went after a group of companies allegedly run by a guy named Thomas Goolnik. The companies — TLD Network, Quantum Management and TBS Industries — were accused of “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” by selling domains that did not exist at the time (specifically, they were trying to sell domains using top level domains that did not exist, including .sex, .bet, .brit, and .scot.)

The FTC eventually settled with Goolnik and the companies with some significant concessions:

The settlement bars the defendants from making misrepresentations about the usability of domain names or about the nature of any product or service they sell over the Internet. The settlement also bars the defendants from failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material limitations or conditions on the usability or functionality of domain names. The settlement bars the defendants from selling customer lists. In addition, the defendants will turn over as much as $300,000 being held in merchant accounts for consumer redress. Redress payments will be available to consumers in the UK and other countries, as well as the United States. The settlement also contains record-keeping requirements to allow the FTC to monitor compliance with the court’s order.

This seems like information that is very much in the public interest. Someone, however, doesn’t think so. There are many indications that that “someone” is Thomas Goolnik. Ten months after our article talking about the NY Times article about Google delinking their story about Thomas Goolnik’s legal troubles with the FTC, we received a notification from Google that our article about the NY Times article had also been delinked under a RTBF request. So we wrote about that. A week later, we received a notice that this new article had also been delinked via a RTBF request.

In that post, in September of 2015, we were extremely clear to anyone from Google looking over that post that it was not about Goolnik’s earlier activities (which we still believed were in the public’s interest), but specifically about Thomas Goolnik’s current actions — specifically an action to abuse the RTBF process to try to hide the fact that he was credibly accused by the FTC of unfair or deceptive practices, leading to a substantial settlement. Since Google had already memory holed two of our articles on the subject, we even included “a special note to the Google RTBF reviewer reading” that post:

We are purposely not mentioning the details of the original story that Thomas Goolnik would no longer like to be associated with. Even if you believe that information is no longer relevant, this article does not discuss that. Instead, it discusses newsworthy and relevant information about Thomas Goolnik today, which is that he’s filing a series of right to be forgotten requests to Google on any story that mentions his attempts to use the RTBF to delete his history. The original EU ruling clearly states that that when a search engine is evaluating a RTBF request, that it should see if the data is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.” This is not about irrelevant information from the past. This is about what appears to have happened this week or last.

Anyway, on Wednesday, three years later, we received… a new notification, that that third article had now been delinked under a RTBF request.

To: Webmaster of https://www.techdirt.com/,

Due to a request under data protection law in Europe, Google can no longer show one or more pages from your site in Google Search results. This only affects responses to some search queries for names or other personal identifiers that might appear on your pages. Only results on European versions of Google are affected. No action is required from you.

Who could possibly want to make such a request? There would be substantial evidence that it is Thomas Goolnik. While Google does not name who specifically made the requests, the fact that every post we’ve ever had mentioning Thomas Goolnik (minus this one… so far) ends up getting delinked in Google provides pretty strong clues that Thomas Goolnik is continuing to use highly questionable RTBF claims to try to delete news coverage of his history and his recent actions.

Once again, if you are a Google RTBF reviewer there is no reason under either the original RTBF rules or the GDPR right to erasure rules that this article should be delinked from anyone’s name, but especially Thomas Goolnik’s. It is about public, relevant, newsworthy information concerning Thomas Goolnik, including his ongoing attempts to use the right to be forgotten to erase a substantial legal settlement he had with the FTC concerning “unfair or deceptive practices” which makes its continued existence very much in the public interest.

And, if you’re Thomas Goolnik reading this: stop it.

Filed Under: europe, free speech, ftc, gdpr, hiding news, news, right to be forgotten, rtbf, thomas goolnik, thomas goolnik thomas goolnik, thomas goolnik thomas goolnik thomas goolnik
Companies: google

Free Law Project Takes A Stand Against Attempt To Use GDPR To Disappear A Public Court Docket

Free Speech

from the good-for-them dept

We recently wrote about how a guy in France, Michael Francois Bujaldon, was using the GDPR to try to delete a public court docket involving a case in which he is a defendant, and has been sued for real estate and securities fraud. As we noted, at least two websites that host public court dockets have felt compelled to either delete or change that particular docket.

Last week, the Free Law Project, who operates the CourtListener website (and runs RECAP — the very useful system that will help automatically free up costly PACER dockets and documents that other RECAP users visit) noted that it, too, had recently received a GDPR demand about a docket (they do not say if it was the same one) and then go into a detailed description of why they are not taking action. The post notes that the general policy of the site has always been that they won’t remove a docket without a court order (though it may remove links from search engines).

More importantly, however, the Free Law Project notes that it is not subject to the GDPR:

As a California public benefit corporation with 501(c)(3) non-profit status in the United States, we categorically reject the notion that we are subject to laws or regulations promulgated by the European Union or its member states.

We collect United States legal materials for a U.S. audience. Our principal place of business, our Executive Director, our board members, our servers, our ISP, and all of our regular activities are located within California. We place no advertisements in European jurisdictions, and have never purposefully directed any of our activities at any European state or its citizens.

This certainly sounds good, though folks in the EU may disagree. The GDPR was written to strike fear into non-EU businesses that they, too, are covered by the law, which raises all sorts of jurisdictional fights. I’ve suggested in the past, and I stand by the idea that sooner or later a GDPR claim is going to come up against the SPEECH Act, which says that foreign judgments that would be found unconstitutional under the First Amendment cannot be enforced in the US. I would imagine trying to delete public dockets might fit that bill, though who knows if anyone’s going to sue the Free Law Project (for the record: I certainly hope no one does).

The Free Law Project then goes even further, noting that even if it was subject to the GDPR (which it is not), it wouldn’t need to remove the content as requested:

First, the GDPR recognizes a right of freedom of expression, and Free Law Project firmly believes that its freedom to speak includes the right to make available these U.S. primary legal materials.

Second, the GDPR also recognizes an exception for archiving purposes in the public interest, for scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes. This is precisely the activity of Free Law Project, which aims to create an archive of U.S. legal materials for the public interest and for scientific, statistical, and historical research purposes.

This also makes sense (and the blog post goes into even more detail). But, again, we’ve already seen at least two other sites feel they were required to act and remove or alter the dockets. So while it’s great that the Free Law Project/CourtListener feels okay in pushing back against this claim, it doesn’t change the fact that these efforts have already been successful. It also doesn’t change the fact that the Free Law Project has to spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how it needs to deal with a law in a totally different continent.

We’re going to see many more examples of this sort of thing. I know lots of people cheered on the GDPR, arguing that any law that says it’s to help you protect your data and privacy must be good, but the consequences of this law are incredibly far reaching, and it will be years, if not decades, before people understand just how much damage it has created as well.

Filed Under: dockets, free speech, gdpr, jurisdiction, michael francois bujaldon, pacer, right to be forgotten
Companies: court listener, free law project

Spanish Court Moves Forward With Prosecution Of Man Who Offended A Bunch Of Religious Lawyers

Free Speech

from the priming-itself-for-another-Inquisition dept

Spain’s speech laws continue to be a nightmare. What started out as merely terrible has progressively gotten worse over the years as the government continues to strip protection from speech for the stupidest of reasons. The country’s laws against hate speech have resulted in the prosecution of comedians, artists, and critics of the government. The laws forbidding speech supporting terrorism have seen more of the same locked up as jokes about a politician’s assassination were determined to be promoting an “unhealthy humoristic environment” and “justifying terrorism.”

Yes, the Spanish government gets to decide what’s funny in Spain. It also apparently gets to decide how offended followers of certain faiths will be when dead/imaginary religious figures are disparaged on social media. Thanks to Spain’s insane laws, a complaint from a religious group is enough to get someone arrested.

That someone is an actor and activist who made the mistake of saying nasty things about Jesus and his mom.

A Madrid judge has decided to press ahead with a court case involving Spanish actor and activist Willy Toledo, in which he is accused of offending religious sentiments by insulting God and the Virgin Mary in messages posted on Facebook.

Toledo was arrested on September 13 on orders from the judge, after he failed to appear in court on two prior occasions to answer questions about the case in a preliminary probe. After spending a night in the cells, and then appearing before the judge the next morning, he was released.

Technically, Toledo’s arrest is due to his failure to appear in court. But that “failure” was due to Toledo’s belief he had committed no crime. A legal complaint by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers says otherwise. This complaint was ignored by Toledo, resulting in a failure-to-appear arrest.

Here’s what prompted the Christian Lawyers into action: Toledo’s response to the arrest of three women for staging their own religious procession featuring a giant model of female genitalia. (Language NSFW)

In his comments, Toledo said: “I shit on God and have enough shit left over to shit on the dogma of the holiness and virginity of the Virgin Mary. This country is unbearably shameful. I’m disgusted. Go fuck yourselves. Long live the Insubordinate Pussy.”

The Christian law group said this comment “offended religious sentiment.” Instead of being told to GTFO, the court decided to move forward with the case. Unfortunately for citizens of Spain, this insane-looking legal charge is actually legitimate.

Article 525 of the Spanish Criminal Code sets out monetary fines for those who offend the feelings of the members of a religious confession by “publicly disparaging their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies.”

Having finally faced a judge (against his will), Toledo is now facing the possibility of being fined for annoying an association of lawyers and disparaging their chosen religious beliefs. The judge says this comment is “potentially offensive,” which seems to be enough to follow through on prosecution. It’s also “devoid of any critical sense,” which means judges in Spain know “legitimate” criticism when they see it.

Toledo won’t have to spend any more time in jail (provided he shows up for future court dates…) but he’ll be out the money spent to defend himself and possibly a whole lot more if the court decides figuratively shitting on religious figures is a criminal violation.

The Christian lawyers believe this is the most righteous outcome. In its statement to El Pais, a spokesperson said Toledo has repeatedly delivered “deliberate and intense attacks” against a concept valued by everyone in this particular law association. How that makes it a crime worth prosecuting is beyond me, but if you’ve got a bunch of terrible laws on the book, they will be used by terrible people to harm their critics.

Filed Under: free speech, jokes, offense, spain, willy toledo

Chinese 'Rage Comic' Site First Victim Of Government's History-Rewriting 'Heroes And Martyrs' Law

Free Speech

from the we'll-tell-you-how-to-remember-us dept

The Chinese government is rewriting history in its own distorted self-image. It wants to distance itself from its unseemly past, so it’s retconning history through selectively-edited educational material and blatant censorship. Sure, the Chinese government has never been shy about its desire to shut up those that don’t agree with it, but a recent “heroes and martyrs” law forbids disparaging long dead political and military figures.

The government alone will decide how much praise must be slathered on designated “heroes and martyrs.” Criticism has been banned, so citizens are at least clear on that aspect. The law went into effect on May 1st, immediately leading to the ban of a Chinese “rage comic” site. This site is the first to be successfully sued under the new law.

The company behind the popular Chinese “rage comics” that were censored earlier this year for defaming a civil war general has been ordered to pay his relatives 100,000 yuan (US$14,500) in compensation.

Ye Ting fought for the Communists in the war and was jailed for five years after being captured by the opposition Nationalists. Soon after his release in 1946 he was killed in a plane crash.

Seven of Ye’s relatives filed a civil lawsuit for defamation against Xian Momo Information Technology in May, soon after it had been ordered to shut down Baozou Manhua, its online platform for rage comics which at the time was the biggest in the country.

Weirdly, the lawsuit centered on a poem written by Ye during his incarceration, which was featured in a video posted to the site spoofing abortion advertisements. According to the court, this “damaged” the reputation of a man who has been dead for 72 years. The law appears to have enacted some sort of hereditary right — not completely unlike our nation’s copyright terms — which allows surviving family members to be legally offended on behalf of their dead relatives.

The court also decided the use of a poem in a spoof ad also harmed society in general, further cementing the ridiculousness of this censorial law and the government enforcing it.

Censorship in China is no laughing matter. The efforts are ridiculous, as are the justifications, but the government is dead serious about rehabilitating its image through direct control of the media, rewritten text books, and litigation. The law is likely to remain on the books forever, retroactively assuring the censors and despots of today’s government will be shiny, happy heroes of the republic for years to come, forcibly respected by the children and grandchildren of today’s silenced critics.

Filed Under: china, free speech, heroes and martyrs, rage comic, ye ting

Giving Cops The Finger Is Protected Speech, Says Another Federal Court

Free Speech

from the learn-faster,-idiots dept

Another federal court has given its official approval of flipping the bird to cops. This isn’t to say it’s a wise idea, just a Constitutional one. Extending the middle finger is protected speech. Detentions or arrests that follow bird-flipping are usually unsupported by any of things officers need to have on hand (probable cause, reasonable suspicion, etc.) to deprive someone of their liberty.

Other cops have argued the hand gesture that pissed them off so much they broke the Constitution is some sort of universal distress signal. The ensuing interaction wasn’t about being offended, but rather their outsized concern someone in the vehicle might be in need of assistance. Courts have found this argument literally unbelievable.

In this case, the cop being sued made no such argument. Instead, Officer Wayne Minard maintained he had probable cause to pull Debra Cruise-Guylas over again because he had only issued a warning about her speeding. The court doesn’t agree with this assessment. It points out Guylas had already been pulled over for speeding. The citation ultimately issued by Officer Minard may have been for impeding traffic, but the purpose of the original stop was fulfilled when the citation was issued. No further violation had occurred when Minard pulled Guylas over a second time. From the decision [PDF]: (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)

The evidence before the Court included a state court record that established the Plaintiff had received and paid a ticket for impeding traffic. […] While Defendant could have, at that time, issued a ticket for speeding, he did not. It was only after the initial stop had been completed, and Plaintiff drove off and “flipped the bird” that Defendant stopped her a second time without any legal justification.

Also, the cop’s lawyer wasn’t much help:

[A]t the September 21, 2018 hearing, Defendant’s counsel conceded: “No doubt the gesture helped — it probably was the foundation for the change of his [Defendant’s] mind” [to implement a second stop] … “I can’t argue around that, your Honor.”

The court notes there’s plenty of precedent on point that says officers can’t detain people for offending them. The lawsuit proceeds and Officer Minard will have to deal with the unpleasant outcome of his idiotic actions.

The Constitution may cover giving officers the finger, but that doesn’t mean officers won’t make you miserable for exercising your First Amendment rights. Sure, you may gain some satisfaction from the courts, but you’ll be out a lot of time and money. This isn’t to say self-censorship is the way to go, but there are real costs attached to exercising your freedoms if you happen to anger the wrong [sigh] “public servant.”

Government employees can violate rights in mere seconds and defend against allegations using someone else’s money. Citizens don’t have that luxury, which is why stupid shit like this continues to happen. A better cop would have let it go, costing no one anything. Officer Minard isn’t one of those cops, and his willingness to abuse the power entrusted to him should be a major concern to his employers.

Filed Under: debra cruise-guylas, first amendment, free speech, police, probable cause, the finger, wayne minard

Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

Free Speech

from the yes,-we-mean--you-peterson dept

I have to say that I’ve never received so many earnest and detailed–but super angry–emails as I did after my article earlier this year calling out Jordan Peterson’s obvious hypocrisy for claiming to fight for free speech, while suing a university for “defamation” over the speech of some of its staff members. So many very, very earnest young men, really, really wanted to debate the finer points of how suing over speech could magically lead to more free speech. Again, to be clear: I thought that what Wilfrid Laurier University did in punishing a teaching assistant for showing a video clip of Peterson was completely asinine and the university and its staff deserved all of the ridicule it got.

The lawsuit, however, was another story altogether. Beyond it being a completely obvious SLAPP suit — using defamation to try to silence someone — there were all sorts of weird conflicts of interest (it was filed by the same lawyer representing the teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd, and as some have pointed out, Shepherd and Peterson are clearly in conflict with one another over this, since it was Shepherd who actually “published” the negative comments about Peterson by posting them in a video). But the key point is that it’s blatant hypocrisy to sue someone for criticizing you while basing a large part of your persona on being about freedom of speech. Indeed, much of Peterson’s claim to fame was in loudly protesting a proposed law in Canada that he claimed would be an attack on his own free speech.

Since then, however, Peterson only seems to be doubling and tripling down on his attacks on free speech. A few weeks ago he filed a second lawsuit against Wilfrid Laurier University arguing (I kid you not) that the University’s own defense to his original lawsuit defamed him again because it claimed that he benefited from the press attention around the controversy (rather than harming him, as required to be defamation). This seems even more ridiculous than his original lawsuit. Canada, like the US, has absolute privilege in judicial proceedings, meaning you can’t claim defamation for things said in the course of ongoing litigation. But, apparently Peterson is going to ignore that.

Then, even more recently, the Cut revealed that Peteron threatened to sue Cornell University professor Kate Manne after she criticized his book in an interview with Vox. Specifically, she called his work misogynistic, which is a clear statement of opinion (and done so based on disclosed facts). But, no matter, she still received a threat letter:

In letters to Manne, Cornell, and Vox, Peterson?s lawyer, Howard Levitt, demanded that all three parties ?immediately retract all of Professor Manne?s defamatory statements, have them immediately removed from the internet, and issue an apology in the same forum to Mr. Peterson. Otherwise, our client will take all steps necessary to protect his professional reputation, including but not limited to initiating legal proceedings against all of you for damages.?

As the Cut article makes clear, these threats are utterly bogus, and appear to be attempts to chill speech that criticizes Peterson. Indeed, the Cut notes that this is all even more ironic, given that Manne actually engages pretty thoughtfully with Peterson’s ideas, rather than dismissing them wholesale as many others have. As Peterson claims to be a supporter of the give and take debate of free speech, it’s blatantly hypocritical of him to then threaten to sue people for fairly tame criticism.

In fact, reading the full threat letter that Peterson’s lawyer sent on his behalf, makes it quite clear just how allergic to “open debate” the apparently “free speech” supporting Peterson appears to be. Multiple statements listed as “defamatory” are so obviously statements of opinion that they include phrases indicating that they are opinion:

• “I also think…”
• “I also suspect…”
• “I believe…”

Manne is clearly expressing her opinions on Peterson’s work. She is critical of Peterson’s ideas, but if you truly believe in the “marketplace of ideas” then you’re supposed to be cool with that — not threaten to sue them.

Also, utterly bizarre is that beyond going after Manne, the letter also threatens to sue the institution where she works, Cornell University (disclosure: also my alma mater) claiming that in Canada “liability can be imputed to employers due to damages caused by their employees and/or officers.” To support this claim, the letter points to John Doe v. Bennett, a Canadian case in which the Roman Catholic Church was found liable for sexual abuse by its clergy. To argue this means a university is somehow liable for defamation because one of its staff members criticized Peterson is quite a stretch.

Oh, and remember, that some of Peterson’s rise to fame was his claim to be taking a principled stand against compelled speech by arguing that a Canadian law would have compelled him to use specific pronouns in addressing people that he felt was a violation of his speech rights. He also has a page on his own website complaining about “perhaps unconstitutional” compelled speech by the Law Society of Upper Canada. And yet, in this letter sent on behalf of free speech warrior Jordan Peterson, his lawyer demands some compelled speech from Manne and Vox in the form of “an apology to Mr. Peterson.” So, apparently taking into consideration a misuse of pronouns in investigating hate crimes (which is actually what the bill Peterson was so upset about was really about) is an unconstitutional form of compelled speech… whereas requiring a public apology for someone being mildly critical of your work is perfectly fine?

To me, that seems like evidence of some fairly blatant hypocrisy, not to mention legal thuggery, which will likely create chilling effects, causing others to shy away from stating their opinions on Peterson’s statements. That may or may not be Peterson’s goal, and at least some of his fans seem to think that silencing criticism is pro-free speech because it allows Peterson’s ideas to spread — but that’s not how it works. Threatening lawsuits and claiming defamation over someone criticizing your ideas is the literal opposite of supporting free speech.

Even if you think it’s cool to create chilling effects for someone who doesn’t want Peterson to speak, you simply are not promoting free speech by silencing critics of free speech. That’s not how it works. At all. Any attempt to completely silence people — even if they’re not fans of your free speech — is still an attempt to stamp out free speech and antithetical to free speech. So, given that so many of Peterson’s avid followers seem to like lists, let’s give you a nice list of twelve rules for not being a total free speech hypocrite:

1. Speak out when you have an opinion on something.
2. Express yourself appropriately when you think someone else is incorrect about something.
3. Recognize that not everyone may agree with your take on things. That’s cool.
4. There may be consequences to your speech. That’s part of free speech.
5. Some of those consequences may involve people calling you nasty names. That’s no fun, but it’s still free speech.
6. Those people are not harming your free speech. They are engaging in it.
7. Don’t sue or threaten to sue those people for defamation. It makes you look like a hypocritical dipshit.
8. Don’t then sue again because of their legal response pushing back on your original defamation lawsuit.
9. Don’t then go screaming at people who call you out as a hypocrite for suing people for criticizing you.
10. Perhaps try a little introspection and recognize that suing people for criticizing you creates massive chilling effects and is entirely counter to free speech.
11. If you’re going to insist that others accept your ideas, maybe recognize that you have to accept others’ ideas, even if you disagree with them.
12. Don’t sue a cat when it hisses at you in the street.

Filed Under: 12 rules, chilling effects, criticism, defamation, free speech, hypocrisy, jordan peterson, kate manne, threats
Companies: cornell university