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US Activists Oppose US Govt Calls To Weaken EU Privacy Rules
judgecorp writes "The European Commission has proposals for data privacy (including the 'right to be forgotten') and the U.S. government is opposing them. Now U.S. activists have arrived in Brussels to lobby against their government's opposition to the European measures. The move comes following reports of 'extreme' lobbying by U.S. authorities against the European proposals."
Although the "right to be forgotten" raises some free speech issues, it doesn't seem like a bad idea in principle.
...the "right to be forgotten" raises some free speech issues...
is one way to look at it, but the other way to look at it is that free speech raises some privacy issues. As the Stanford Law Review article recognises, there's a tension between the two and different cultures choose to give them different weights. That doesn't make either culture right or wrong.
Extreme lobbying, such as employed in Iraq, etc., etc?
Why is this marked as troll?
U.S. has no jurisdiction or vote or representation in Europe. Any opposition to European laws thus consists of some unofficial threats, right?
Nor is there a legitimate "political" reason. The only reason it might be happening is some companies (Facebook, etc.) are concerned about running into some customer-protection laws which are conveniently absent in U.S.
The OP is not that far off.
The fear the US may have is that at some point down the road the EU may try to go after US companies to force them to obey its rules. It's one thing to say "Facebook.de must delete every evidence of a user's existence upon their request", but what happens if the EU is trying to say "Facebook.com must delete every evidence of a user's existence upon their request."
Beyond that, there are some limits to how far you could ever apply this "forget me" notion. I'm sitting in North America, running a listserv that has people from the US, Canada, Europe, a couple of Asian countries and Australia on it. The listserv has an archive dating back to about 2002 and there are copies of that archive all over the bloody place. If I suddenly were faced with requests from my European users to start deleting every post they made, it would be an arduous and ultimate futile process. We'd be talking about deleting not only their posts, but posts that contain excerpts from their posts. Worst of all, it would ruin the continuity of the archive, which may be of significant value (I've found myself going back several years to hunt down information).
Obviously this law is targeted at Google, Facebook, Twitter et al. But what it ultimately comes to encompass is ludicrous, and I sure hope that the US, where my stuff is based, does not go down such an extremist road.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Our personal data is worth money to others. They don't want their money taken from them.
No, no, you misunderstand. In reality Facebook is selflessly fighting for our rights to remember. They would allow you to delete the data, but they are concerned about freedom of expression being preserved. They said it right here:
Facebook in particular has strong objections to the right to be forgotten, claiming it "raises many concerns with regard to the right of others to remember and to freedom of expression"
Do you feel the same way about Piers Morgan advocating against our Second Amendment? He is not a U.S. citizen and he has no vote here. He may not be threatening extreme violence or such, but he is sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong.
You silly nincompoop, can't you even see the difference between a government sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, and a guy (a journalist) expressing his opinion ?
Since these companies are based in Ireland for tax purposes, that might indeed end up happening...
On the other hand, that could also force said companies' tax dollars back into the US which wouldn't hurt at this point...
Nothing is enough for whom enough is too little - Confucius
I've seen more good rulings come out of EU than the US. With no in-depth information on a subject, I would more trust the EU with my person (/personal information) than the US (Government/US companies)...
As the OP I am now forced to explain that I was being facetious. If you didn't get it, then I pity you.
Nevertheless, there is a serious intent in highlighting that Americans seem to feel it is their god-given right to tell others how to run their business. This used to be great when Americans still believed in their own Bill of Rights and felt that the rest of the world would benefit from the same. But now they have been turned into sniveling cowards by a bunch of barbarians, they are happy to trample anything that sticks up.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
As proposed, Slashdot (a US company) could be forced to delete posts made by US citizens, if those posts mention someone in the EU.
NO. That is absolutely NOT what the right to be forgotten is about.
The right will give an individual to have THEIR data removed from sites. Data that they themselves uploaded, such as posts they made or photos they shared. If you see one of those photos and decide to write a blog post about it then your blog is perfectly safe and won't be covered by this right.
The right to be forgotten is not about purging information about yourself from the internet, it is about having companies delete your data when asked to. That means if you delete your Facebook profile it really is deleted, and Facebook can't carry on displaying your photos to other people or displaying your name in search results or store information about you any more. If other people post on their wall mentioning your name there is nothing you can do about it, beyond the usual legal protections against libel etc.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC