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Google Starts Removing Search Results After EU Ruling

Posted by samzenpus on from the forget-me dept.

An anonymous reader writes Google has begun removing some search results to comply with a European Union ruling upholding citizens' right to have objectionable personal information about them hidden in search engines. "Google engineers overnight updated the company's technical infrastructure to begin implementing the removals, and Thursday began sending the first emails to individuals informing them that links they had requested were being taken down. The company has hired a dedicated 'removals team' to evaluate each request, though only a small number of the initial wave of takedown requests has so far been processed."

2 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Data protection in the private sphere is one of the few areas where the EU has its shit together.

    It is easy for any determined person to use the Internet to destroy the average person's reputation - the only anecdotes are a lot of money or to hide yourself completely from the world so nobody's judgment is relevant.

    1. Re:Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The requests from nasty people will be publicised because that is the most effective way to give the appearance that these laws are harmful, even though the majority of people have a legitimate, reasonable right to have their private lives kept private.

      As for politicians (including Muslims in public office, of course), they are in the public sphere and ought to be excepted in legislation. People convicted of sex abuses are harder to treat:
      1) there is a whole range of convictions from baby-fucking to taking the wrong photo of your 17 year old partner, all of which tend to get you on the same register;
      2) the public justice system should be effectively dealing with offenders - if they're a danger, they shouldn't be in the wilderness or unsupervised anyway;
      3) most "PAEDOS HIDING EVERYWHERE" is pussified scare-mongering. If you're going to be sexually abused, it's almost certainly by someone you know well.