'Right to be forgotten' ruling creates a quagmire for Google et al

[Ideologue]

I visited scenic rural Colorado.

[Capetan Mihali]

I visited scenic rural Colorado.

ADX Florence?  A lot of famous people have been traveling there.

[dps]

What company has 600 openings?  It's more like 600 companies have 1 opening, and all of these 600 companies are trying to narrow down the list of 1,000 resumes each one of them get.  Yes, looking at it above on the macro level, we know that 100 of the companies must be coveting candidates that will ultimately take another job offer, but from the company's perspective, they're inundated with 1,000 resumes for their one opening, and they have to filter through the mess somehow.

If it's 600 different companies, all 600 of them aren't going to have a policy of automatically eliminating from consideration any applicant with a criminal record.

[Ideologue]

Only 598.

[Josquius]

One thing about this ongoing story- the Spanish guy who started it all.... He was upset about his name being linked to a few articles from years back about his financial troubles... But every single story about this issue seems to be repeating his name and about his problems.

[jimmy olsen]

The EU's demands grow even crazier

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/eu-regulators-to-google-right-to-forget-needs-to-go-worldwide/

EU regulators to Google: "Right to forget" needs to go worldwide
Regulators are hammering out the fine art of being forgotten—at home and abroad.

by Joe Mullin - July 25 2014, 2:28am KST

In May, the European Union's highest court ordered Google to grant EU citizens a "right to be forgotten" that would allow them to remove "inadequate" or "irrelevant" links. Google complied, providing a new form that was used thousands of times—mostly by those seeking to erase links related to accusations of fraud and other serious crimes.

But Google only removed links on its European sites, like google.co.uk. Users in Europe, or anywhere else, can still get "full" search results by visiting the US version of the site at google.com.

That decision is now under fire by EU regulators and experts, who have said the limitation "effectively defeats the purpose of the ruling," according to a Reuters report. EU authorities are scheduled to meet with Google today, as well as representatives from Yahoo and Microsoft, to discuss the issue.

The text of the European Court of Justice's ruling doesn't say anything about how to handle requests across varying national sites. If a link meets the criteria, the court ruling simply states that "the links and information in the list of results must be erased." It doesn't detail how and where such deletions should occur.

The idea of stretching the ruling to apply worldwide is a worst-case scenario not just for Google but for critics of the law, who have called it a form of censorship.

"In a sign of the importance Google is attaching to the privacy debate in Europe, it has recruited a panel of high profile academics, policymakers, and civil society experts to advise it on how to implement the ruling as it ploughs through the over 70,000 requests it has received so far," notes Reuters.

Some users who had their requests denied by Google are appealing to state privacy authorities to force Google to remove their links. The British government has received 23 such complaints so far, while French and Italian privacy authorities have received a handful each.

Microsoft just started taking "right to be forgotten" requests for its Bing search engine last week. It uses a four-part Web form that asks for more information than Google's form.

[Josquius]

So far this ruling had proved an annoyance with some results on searches appearing saying they have been removed. They're always irrelevant. But how do I know this is so? The very thing I'm looking for could be being hidden for all I know. Using American google and thus missing out on localized searches is he only solution

[Sheilbh]

So far this ruling had proved an annoyance with some results on searches appearing saying they have been removed. They're always irrelevant. But how do I know this is so? The very thing in looking for could be being hidden for all I know. Using American google and thus missing out on localized searches is he only solution

Doesn't look like they're keen on that either

EU watchdog in new bid to stop publishers side-stepping 'right to be forgetten' orders
Cleland Thom
28 November 2014
 
EU privacy regulators are attempting to stop the media from circumventing people's "right to be forgotten" requests.

Some media websites publish fresh stories about the "take-downs" when Google removes links to copy in their archives.

They rely on Google telling them the links have been removed.

But EU data protection watchdogs have said search engines should not inform webmasters about their decisions.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party said: "Search engines should not as a general practice inform the webmasters of the pages affected by removals of the fact that some web pages cannot be acceded from the search engine in response to a specific name-based query.

"There is no legal basis for such routine communication under EU data protection law."

The working party also wants "right to be forgotten" decisions to be applied worldwide.

At the moment, they only apply to Google's European search engines, so users can still find the content by searching Google.com

The report said: "Delisting decisions must be implemented in such a way that they guarantee the effective and complete protection of data subjects' rights and that EU law cannot be circumvented.

"In practice, this means that... delisting should also be effective on all relevant .com domains."

Google has received more than 170,000 requests to remove links to webpages, including news articles, from its search results since the European Courts right to be forgotten ruling in May.

[Martinus]

this is interesting. We've had this problem at work (I work at a newspaper), with people calling up saying they want certain articles about themselves taken down. Example, someone who was charged for fraud, now out of prison, saying that it's not helpful to his job search when the first thing that comes up on google for his name is our article about him being found guilty. We've resisted those sorts of things, my argument being...It's a newspaper article. You can't change that.

And I've always thought that I want someone who has been convicted of fraud to have to explain that conviction to future employers.

The trouble is that the notion of a "right to forget" is completely new.  Google isn't doing anything new here - you could always go back and look at old newspapers in the library.  Google just makes the process of finding old news dramatically easier.

If there is a "right to forget" does that extend to libraries as well?

All of this is new - same goes with the right to privacy - never before we were so open to invigilation.

There is a clear need for new rules as conditions have changed. It is to be seen how this will play out and what will be considered proportional and necessary. I just resent ignorant "this is crazy" or "that will never work" remarks from the Languish resident ignorami.

[garbon]

[The Brain]

Oh Mart.