Following EU Ruling, BBC Article Excluded From Google Searches

Albanach writes: In 2007, the BBC's economics editor, Robert Peston, penned an article on the massive losses at Merrill Lynch and the resulting resignation of their CEO Stan O'Neal. Today, the BBC has been notified that the 2007 article will no longer appear in some Google searches made within the European Union, apparently as a result of someone exercising their new-found "right to be forgotten." O'Neal was the only individual named in the 2007 article. While O'Neal has left Merrill Lynch, he has not left the world of business, and now holds a directorship at Alcoa, the world's third largest aluminum producer with $23 billion in revenues in 2013.

Comments

Blaming Google

[Stormy Dragon]

I don't know why the journalist is blaming Google for this ("So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?") when it's obvious they're not doing this voluntarily.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it was inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated. Too bad. The EU doesn't want any of that stuff around.

Re:Blaming Google

[EasyTarget]

I don't know why the journalist is blaming Google for this ("So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?") when it's obvious they're not doing this voluntarily.

Because the people in charge are terrified of Google, the Internet, and their citizens use of it. So the BBC, kowtowing as usual to power, but still with enough journalistic testicles to make some form of protest, blames Google.. in the hope they can get away with it. Rather than pinning the blame on the corrupt shitpile of lawyers and wonks who forced Google to do this in a desperate attempt to make money the deciding factor in information control and suppression.

Re:Blaming Google

[Albanach]

He doesn't really blame Google. From the article:

To be fair to Google, it opposed the European court ruling.

He does question why there's no apparent right to appeal. It would certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not. The "Why has Google killed this example of my journalism?" headline is answered in the article: because the EU Court made them do it. Google is only responsible for the implementation, not the judgement, and the article doesn't imply otherwise. I suppose if people only read the headline that might be a problem.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, although the article is quite opinionated, it seems to reference events of the time, so it shouldn't be considered inaccurate unless the author was lying.

O'Neal (the article spells it with an 'a', despite the summary substituting an 'i') is a director in a new company, so his activities as a CEO of a previous company are still relevant.

And the events of the article are less than a decade old, so the article is definitely not outdated.

So, by all counts Google is dropping the search results voluntarily without even trying to filter for any EU requirements. Thus this is squarely Google's bad.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

O'Neal (the article spells it with an 'a', despite the summary substituting an 'i')

It's O'Neill. Two L's.

Re:Blaming Google

[John Allsup]

I can imagine Streisand effects coming into play. If google blacklists one article, in compliance, what is to stop other articles containing the information and possibly linking to the original appearing.

Re:Blaming Google

[LifesABeach]

The legal issues will take a while to iron out. Can one find the article using other search engines? Maybe it's time for a new Google? Maybe call it "Ranger?" Apologies to Tolkien.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

If google really wanted to give the EU ruling the finger they'd simply do what they do with DMCA requests, mention that results have been removed due to a ruling and link to a list of them on another website not controlled by google and not hosted in the EU.
They've complied with the law whilst simultaneously proving how stupid it is to try to censor the internet.

Re:Blaming Google

[mysidia]

He does question why there's no apparent right to appeal. It would certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.

This is for the courts to decide. And I suspect Google will take the position that it's suppressed by default, since that's the only safe action for their part (They were ordered by a judge to do so).

Re:Blaming Google

[Maxwell]

You should let Alcoa know. Pretty embarrassing having the the name of one of their corporate directors wrong.

Re:Blaming Google

[Registered Coward v2]

He doesn't really blame Google. From the article:

To be fair to Google, it opposed the European court ruling.

He does question why there's no apparent right to appeal. It would certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.

It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it was a valid request. It appears the data holder could decide the request was not a valid one; however given the requester could litigate such a decision it seems many will simply take the expedient route of deleting links.

Quite frankly, an appeals process would be an onerous burden on the data holder since they would then be placed in the position of deciding who is right and possibly face legal challenges. If they want to build in an appeals process then the legal liability and burden out to be on the person making the appeal, not the search engine. After all, Google isn't deleting their content just ignoring it per EU directive; and anyone with a VPN can still go to a non-EU proxy to get access.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

They already know. There's another Director O'Neil with only one L, and he has no sense of humor at all.

Re:Blaming Google

[OakDragon]

You should let Alcoa know. Pretty embarrassing having the the name of one of their corporate directors wrong.

They can always ask for it to be removed.

Re:Blaming Google

[bluefoxlucid]

Wikipedia:List of Persons who have Exercised their Right to be Forgotten

Re: Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Article is still searchable on BBC.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

If I lived in Europe I'd invoke the right to be forgotten on this law. No more search results for it since it is - inaccurate and irrelevant...

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why courts, not companies, should decide whether information should be taken down, on a case-by-case basis. Of course, this imposes a significant burden on people who want "to be forgotten", but that's probably as it should be, as opposed to the rule the EU court forced on Europe: "make any information about you you don't like disappear with a few clicks".

Re:Blaming Google

[Bengie]

Google is required by law to do it "voluntarily". It is up to Google to interpret the law. The EU made it clear that their law system does not want to get involved and wants Google to "just do it", but to also not allow "blatant abuse", which is undefined. Google can get in trouble, so they need to be cautious, and a rich person could easily start an expensive law suit.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why the journalist is blaming Google for this ("So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?") when it's obvious they're not doing this voluntarily.

Because he is not brave enough to blame his employer, the well known left-wing BBC, that supported this right to censorship (or what many left-wing people here in Europe call "right to be forgotten")?

 

Re:Blaming Google

[AmiMoJo]

There definitely needs to be a legal mechanism in place to make appeals at no or very little cost. It's a shame Google didn't wait and work with the EU to get that in place, before processing all these requests.

Re:Blaming Google

[Registered Coward v2]

There definitely needs to be a legal mechanism in place to make appeals at no or very little cost. It's a shame Google didn't wait and work with the EU to get that in place, before processing all these requests.

My guess is they didn't want risk legal action once the court ruled. They can clarify later at while still complying even if their actions may be stricter than needed. Given the pace of getting a definitive answer and legal framework out if EU regulatory and legislative processes what Google did seems a reasonable approach.

Re:Blaming Google

[LifesABeach]

Now that's funny; thanks.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easier to change history that way.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope articles come like that in droves for that Spanish lawyer behind this ruling. If he had really wanted this damaging item not to show up early in the search results, he should have done more things: publish articles, help people, do good. If he did well enough, those articles would have had a higher rank and the foreclosure article would have fallen to the second page. People would have given him a pass or not noticed the item in the first place.

But he's a lawyer. I guess there's no cure for that.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical bullshit EU dickheads - "forget" it happened. and it's all better - fuck you, you did it, it got published, live with it.

Despite all your attempts, history cannot be changed. You have no "right" to try and re-write history: no "do overs" allowed.

captcha: rancid - like most EU "lawmaking"

Re:Blaming Google

[Mateorabi]

There's another one with just one L, and he has NO sense of humor.

Re:Blaming Google

[u38cg]

The thing that puzzles me is why Google is not charging for link removal. In the EU, if you want a copy of your personal data, you have to pay a reasonable fee for it. Likewise, if you want data removed, I don't see why you shouldn't pay a reasonable fee either. That in turn would at least pay for better scrutiny of these results.

Re:Blaming Google

[martin-boundary]

I don't know why the journalist is blaming Google for this ("So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?") when it's obvious they're not doing this voluntarily.

More to the point, why is he blaming Google for something that is not his business? It's their servers, not his. His blog is physically unaffected. Sometimes, Google makes changes to their listings, on their own computers, to serve their own customers or to follow the law. This is nothing new - save for the fact that he's trying to write a story to rile up the masses.

Because the people in charge are terrified of Google, the Internet, and their citizens use of it. So the BBC, kowtowing as usual to power, but still with enough journalistic testicles to make some form of protest, blames Google..

Conspiracy Theory much? Google spies commercially on people all the time. That's a fact. Their spying powers in Europe are being looked into, and ordinary people, whose data is being spied on by Google (and Facebook too!), have received the right to have some of their spied data be removed or altered. What this has to do with the BBC "kowtowing as usual to power" is beyond me.

However, it's high time that the rampant commercial spying that's going on is reined in - and starting with Google is a great idea.

Rather than pinning the blame on the corrupt shitpile of lawyers and wonks who forced Google to do this in a desperate attempt to make money the deciding factor in information control and suppression.

Really? Lawyers are a shitpile because they forced Google to allow people some say in what Google publishes about them? Why don't you go live in Russia or China. They have spy networks where anonymous people can say anything they like about you, and you don't get to tell anyone it's not true. You seem to like that.

Re:Blaming Google

[gsslay]

This statement is not the conclusion of the article, it's the headline of the article.

The journalist is using a basic journalistic technique of stating the position in the simpliest, bluntest and most provacative way possible. That makes it easy for the casual browser to grasp the topic, and hopefully draws them in.

The article then goes on to modify and explain.

Re:Blaming Google

[martin-boundary]

It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it was a valid request.

Why should there be a provision for appeal? It's the person's data, and Google isn't an organ of the state offering a social service. They're just some private company that collects data indiscriminately, whether true or false, and publishes it for profit. At best there should be strict identity checking to prevent fraud.

The best way to view this is like those car window washers at the red lights. They start washing your windscreen without asking, and then expect payment as if you'd agreed to this. Similarly, Google goes around publishing stuff about everyone without asking, and without quality control, to make money.

It's perfectly natural to be able to tell Google to stop publishing rumours and hearsay, or even true fact that are embarassing.

Re:Blaming Google

[Registered Coward v2]

It appears the "right to be Forgotten" rules apparently have no provision for appeal or to give the supplier of the information the right to decide if it was a valid request.

Why should there be a provision for appeal? It's the person's data, and Google isn't an organ of the state offering a social service. They're just some private company that collects data indiscriminately, whether true or false, and publishes it for profit. At best there should be strict identity checking to prevent fraud.

Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes. A real world counterpart would be to expect every librarian to vet every article in very newspaper, magazine, encyclopedia,book or other document they catalogue for fraud. As unreasonable expectation for them as for Google. Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.

The best way to view this is like those car window washers at the red lights. They start washing your windscreen without asking, and then expect payment as if you'd agreed to this. Similarly, Google goes around publishing stuff about everyone without asking, and without quality control, to make money.

First of all, Google is not intruding an property without permission no taking any action to

Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet, i.e. searching for specific terms and returning the results. Unlike Kibo and his all seeing grep; they use those sort results based on their algorithms and store information for quicker access. If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.

A more relevant real world example would be requiring publishers to remove material from their archives so it would be as if they never existed.

It's perfectly natural to be able to tell Google to stop publishing rumours and hearsay, or even true fact that are embarassing.

I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy? Should the press be shutout from Google searches because what they publish could be embarrassing, damaging, and possibly wrong? Get a bad review? Take it down. This path, taken to an extreme, means no negative information would be searchable, no matter if it is true or not.

Finally, how do you address cases where a company has no presence in the EU, but is reachable from the EU? Should they comply with removal requests? Should EU based companies with no presence in China remove material the Chinese find offensive, threatening or otherwise want removed?

I am not saying their shouldn't be a mechanism to address a right to privacy but in the absence of clear guidance it can have many unforeseen consequences.

Re:Blaming Google

[martin-boundary]

Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes.

Google cache. Google news. Enough said.

Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.

Which causes all sorts of potential slander and defamation headaches. Slander can be as simple as repeating an untruth, thereby sullying someone's reputation. As a private company without any special legal status, I would expect they should embrace the possibility that a simple request for removal from their index might prevent a more protracted legal proceeding. In fact, refusing to remove material when reasonably requested would likely qualify easily as obstruction.

Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet [...] If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.

Except that, because Google is indiscriminate, they will repeat and amplify, for profit, any untruths that they happen to find on obscure websites. Suppose I accuse you by name of being a terrorist. You can attack me legally, but most likely my blog isn't worth the effort. But Google enhances and duplicates my outrageous claims to anyone, especially if I've been clever about it. So now you have a problem. While technically I originated the terrorist claim, Google is slandering you in this case orders of magnitude more than I. And both legally and practically, you really need to tell Google to stop.

I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy?

I disagree with this interpretation. Google is an unregulated private company. They have neither an obligation to the public, nor any higher binding standards that are imposed by law on them. They are solely responsible to their shareholders, to maximize returns within the ordinary bounds of the law.

The problem of deciding what is legitimate or not isn't a problem for Google to solve, it is a problem for the courts to decide on a case by case basis. But since that is obviously highly impractical, I feel that gving the subjects of the information the right to censor it from Google searches is the next best solution. The same requirement about data should apply to all ordinary private companies without special status.

Alternatively, if Google is to get special privileges to use other people's data in ways that can harm them, then Google should become a public agency, legally regulated, and probably owned and controlled by the state. Think NASA. At least that way there is a real social contract and tradeoff.

Should the press be shutout from Google searches because what they publish could be embarrassing, damaging, and possibly wrong? Get a bad review? Take it down. This path, taken to an extreme, means no negative information would be searchable, no matter if it is true or not.

I would imagine that much of the press would like this, as it means that they regian control over the information they produce. People will have to visit their sites rather than reading the stories for free through Google.

However, consider what your argument really implies. Google would have to merely institute a policy on content to deal with the deep linking problem. You don't get to search web pages deep within a news site, instead you are presented with the front door of the site only. Once you enter, your dealings are directly with the news site. If they slander you, you can complain to the source. If you read their articles, they get feedback and show you

Re:Blaming Google

[Registered Coward v2]

Google doesn't publish any of the information it indexes.

Google cache. Google news. Enough said.

Fair enough, I should have been clear that I was only referring to search results, not news aggregation sites which could be held to a different standard just as print news.

Google makes no claim to the veracity of their information, beyond trying to keep obvious attempts to game result sour of searches.

Which causes all sorts of potential slander and defamation headaches. Slander can be as simple as repeating an untruth, thereby sullying someone's reputation. As a private company without any special legal status, I would expect they should embrace the possibility that a simple request for removal from their index might prevent a more protracted legal proceeding. In fact, refusing to remove material when reasonably requested would likely qualify easily as obstruction.

Not really, they are following an accepted practice since the start of the internet [...] If you don't want them to crawl your site, a simple HTML tag will stop them unlike window washers who you may have to pull a weapon on to convince them to leave your property alone.

Except that, because Google is indiscriminate, they will repeat and amplify, for profit, any untruths that they happen to find on obscure websites. Suppose I accuse you by name of being a terrorist. You can attack me legally, but most likely my blog isn't worth the effort. But Google enhances and duplicates my outrageous claims to anyone, especially if I've been clever about it. So now you have a problem. While technically I originated the terrorist claim, Google is slandering you in this case orders of magnitude more than I. And both legally and practically, you really need to tell Google to stop.

Actually, the onus should be on the original publisher to remove the material, not on the indexer. That ensures any link to the original information is now gone, not just the search engine results; which really ensures it is "forgotten." Google et. al. may make it easier to to find the information but since they are not the originator they have no liability for what is said.You do have a good point in that Google i stye easy target to go after rather than actually ensuring information is forgotten. However, the EU could require the hosting site to remove the page or, if they are a non-EU site not to serve it to EU IP addresses.

So while it may be practical to stop Google (and any other research engine that has a physical EU presence) I do not think Google should be legally liable for any material they index simply because they make it easier to find something someone does not like.

I would say that is one POV. Independent of wether or not you consider Google to publish information, the challenge is how to decide what is legitimately able to be removed. When is their a demonstrable public interest in the information that outweighs a right to privacy?

I disagree with this interpretation. Google is an unregulated private company. They have neither an obligation to the public, nor any higher binding standards that are imposed by law on them. They are solely responsible to their shareholders, to maximize returns within the ordinary bounds of the law.

The problem of deciding what is legitimate or not isn't a problem for Google to solve, it is a problem for the courts to decide on a case by case basis. But since that is obviously highly impractical, I feel that gving the subjects of the information the right to censor it from Google searches is the next best solution. The same requirement about data should apply to all ordinary private companies without special status.

I would propose just the opposite - obtain a court order to remove the material from the search and then Google w

Re:Blaming Google

[sir-gold]

This "right to be forgotten" should be on a case-by-case court-ordered basis.

If you own a building with rental tenants, and one of them refuses to pay rent, you can't just kick them out. You have to go to the court and get an official eviction notice.

The same should be true here as well, if you want a link removed you should have to appear in front of a court, and get an official "forget-me" notice.

Re:Blaming Google

[sir-gold]

How is the BBC "left wing"?

Why do people assume that if an organization is more "left" or "right" of their own beliefs, that organization must be on a "wing" of some sort.?

Having you ever considered that you might be so biased to the Right that ALL media (except fox news) looks like Leftist propaganda?

Also, I find it very hard to believe that the BBC would have supported this law.

Re:Blaming Google

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine Streisand effects coming into play.

Time has re-written every line.

Oops.

[i kan reed]

No public figure exception? Our bad.

Re:Oops.

[bill_mcgonigle]

No public figure exception? Our bad.

WONTFIX/WORKSFORME

Re:Oops.

[Anonymous Coward]

No public figure exception? Our bad.

Except the ruling made it clear that the public interest did have to be considered. In the test case, they decided that an obscure Spanish guy's financial problems over a decade ago were not a matter of public interest any more. In this case the public interest is clearly very important.

I suspect this 'right to be forgotten' issue is going to be like the "McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit", or "the Twinkie defense" - always referred to massively out of context and with the facts twisted to make them seem ridiculous.

Streisand effect

[BenJeremy]

"Right to be forgotten" works great for some already-anonymous person... not so much for CEOs or other 1%ers.

Re:Streisand effect

[HeckRuler]

It does now. Because it's rare and uncommon. And if it goes well for him and people like him, then you're going to see more and more people performing PR campaigns on their own histories, re-writing the past, and burying their past sins.

The streisand effect only happens when someone steps out of line and deviates from the norm. It was an oddity that Streisand sued Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for some aerial photography. Because it made waves, it attracted eyeballs.

Stan O'Neal using this law is a oddity right now. Let's see how commonplace it is in 5 years.

Re:Streisand effect

[GameboyRMH]

They already do this, but before they couldn't request that Google remove the results directly. Instead they'd hire firms to make a bunch of empty-shell blogs with useless puff pieces related to the person in question as SEO spam to bury the undesirable link.

Re:Streisand effect

[I_Wrote_This]

The "right to be forgotten" applies to an individual? What about the "right to be able to remember (or find out)", which applies to everyone else?

Re:Streisand effect

[BoberFett]

Except now Streisand could go back and demand that every page talking about the Streisand Effect forget her, essentially eliminating the effect.

Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you laugh about these high profile cases of people trying to be "forgotten," remember that after a while, these removals will become so commonplace that people will stop paying attention, and the system will work as intended.

Re:Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's just get this out of the way now: If Hitler were alive today he'd be able to have Google remove all links to anything relating to himself as the Nazi leader.

Another question to be asked: If a journalistic article can be taken down, could a page with commenters referencing Hitler (as in this /. article due to this very post) be removed from Google's search?

Re:Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody removes Hitler from Google searches on their first try at censorship. http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/ http://xkcd.com/1063/

Re:Before you laugh

[Poeli]

Let's just get this out of the way now: If Hitler were alive today he'd be able to have Google remove all links to anything relating to himself as the Nazi leader.

Hypothetically:
He could ask that if you search for his name, you won't find any links about him being the Nazi leader. However, if you search for Nazi leader, all these links would show up again. Same for 'genocide jews', ... Google only has to remove the link between a search term and a search result. It doesn't delete the actual search result from it's index.

Re:Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

> Let's just get this out of the way now: If Hitler were alive today he'd be able to have Google remove all links to anything relating to himself as the Nazi leader.

No he would not. There is a public interest exception to the law. Information about being the head of a major political movement is unequivocally within the scope of the public interest exception.

If you can't even get the Godwin right, its time to re-examine your position on an issue.

Re:Before you laugh

[AmiMoJo]

No, Google has clearly fucked up here. The court was quite clear in its ruling. The information in the article is clearly accurate and still extremely relevant. Google should never have removed it form their index.

Re:Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

That will surely disadvantage them against other search engines who implement the ruling properly in effect displaying a result that will never appear on Google?

Re:Before you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but from google's perspective the choice really is"

1. Remove the links from just the search for the name and cross their fingers that they didn't mess something up and there's still a way to get the results on such a search (by including other terms as well, or mispelling something - how strict are the rules exactly) opening them up to whatever the penalties are.

2. Just remove the link from the search index entirely using the long standing systems they have for that well testing through all the DMCA type removals.

Streisand effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about this slashdot entry? Will it also not appear in google search results?

Re:Streisand effect?

[_KiTA_]

What about this slashdot entry? Will it also not appear in google search results?

Until they change the law to force Google to remove ALL Slashdot results to "ensure complete compliance with the citizen's rights."

Heck, I'm waiting for a US version of this law to allow companies to issue Google Gag orders against bad things they've done. Want to learn about how Exxon Mobil spilled oil? Not on the Corporate Internet, you don't!

Re:Streisand effect?

[anorlunda]

Maybe this slashdot entry really will vanish if someone files an official request to remove it to Google.

If i were Google, I would play hardball. I would not just remove the article from the search, but the whole BBC web site. That would eventually lead to removal of all court and eventually all government web sites from search engines. As the whole Internet began to go dark as seen by Europeans, it is my guess that they would relent and reverse the decision.

Who controls the past...

[Anonymous Coward]

...controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Re:Who controls the past...

[EasyTarget]

1984; the instruction manual for our lords and masters.

Google should create a special app/site for takedown requests, and call it 'Winston'.

Re:Who controls the past...

[petes_PoV]

Who controls the present controls the past.

And who controls the controls, controls everything.

Whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't take long to find the giant flaw in with the "right to be forgotten," did it? One percenters will now use it to selectively edit their Internet profile.

Re: Whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sort of. Google's search is for the masses. Financial sector companies subscribe to other, paywalled sources of information, like Lexis and Bloomberg. They'll still carry the uncensored truth, which is a great selling point.

Re:Whoops

[AmiMoJo]

Except that this has had exactly the opposite effect. If you google the guy's name you get news stories about him trying to have the information removed. The top result is a Wikipedia page that I just edited to include a note about his request.

Re:Whoops

[Dare nMc]

Did you do this search from the EU? Appears only the EU google requests are being tampered with. I am really curious how far and fast google expands this blacklist to all references to the event in europe, or does the resident need to keep requesting... Because this was leaked as a bad. example, its doubtfull google can get away with many of these types of leaks going forward.
I am guessing plenty of proxy plugins for google europe will become popular, rendering this law mute anyway.

Re:Whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

I am guessing plenty of proxy plugins for google europe will become popular, rendering this law mute anyway.

Yes, to get around the Great Firewall of Europe.

Re: Whoops

[coofercat]

...like the BBC? All you need to do is search there instead of Google: http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/?q... Or even frikkin' Bing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=S...

And there is the ridiculousness of this law. It's not about "being forgotten" it's about breaking Google's market dominance. Either way, it's complete bullshit and should never have been made into a law.

Streisand Effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

But I assume they aren't going to block the glut of articles about this landmark event? So his name will be far more well-known than if it was only mentioned in a 2007 article. Brilliant.

Massive loses?

[gstoddart]

Christ guys, do the editors actually get paid? And if so, what, exactly, is the job description?

Because it clearly doesn't involve, you know, editing.

Re:Massive loses?

[markhb]

I think if they attach your name to a blockquote in a story, they apply the "you own your own words" policy and leave it as-is without so much as a smug (sic). For those portions of the story they actually write themselves, it is not required that they spell or use grammar more correctly than CmdrTaco did.

Re:Massive loses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Figured that out all by yourself, did you?

Re:Massive loses?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, the last story I submitted had a link to an original article. The "editor" replaced it with a link to a second hand story that must have been at a site that has some agreement with slashdot for links or something - since the original was on a well respected site. So they do more than "you own your own words". When they actively make what you submitted worse - that is editing. It is just shitty editing.

Re:Massive loses?

[gstoddart]

Figured that out all by yourself, did you?

No, it's been true for a long time.

But if we keep reminding them of how incompetent they actually are, maybe someone will do something about it.

Who am I kidding, everybody is working on the steaming turd which is Beta. Slashdot has gone even further downhill since Dice took it over.

Wealthy People Have the Same Rights as You

[Anonymous Coward]

Film at 11.

Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand you have a guy who got in a bar fight when he was in college. Some drunk idiot spills beer on his girlfriend, so he confronts drunk idiot and beats him down, then gets charged with assault. On the other hand, you have this piece of shit (Stan O'Neil).

Which is worse? The college kid having an assault charge hanging over his head the rest of his life, or guys like Stan O'Neil being given a free-pass when they rape millions of people for billions of their hard-earned dollars.

Perhaps the answer is to have a 15-year (or 20-year) waiting period before you can exercise your right to be forgotten? Maybe the answer is just not to commit a crime in the first place.

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[MobyDisk]

Would a 20-year old news article about getting into a bar fight really need removal? That isn't going to keep the person from getting a job or something. Someone who judges people from 20-year old charges isn't worth working for.

The power to arbitrarily remove someone else's published works is horrible - it's like the 1st amendment in reverse. There's no legitimate reason for that, and this example of a wealthy person trying to hide their laundry is proof.

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about changing our culture so that public crucifixion based on someone's past mistakes is not acceptable?

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[Zordak]

On one hand you have a guy who got in a bar fight when he was in college. Some drunk idiot spills beer on his girlfriend, so he confronts drunk idiot and beats him down, then gets charged with assault. On the other hand, you have this piece of shit (Stan O'Neil).

Perhaps the answer is to remember that "information wants to be free," and therefore it's a bad idea to beat up some random guy because he spilled beer on your girlfriend if that's not the kind of reputation you want to have. In the meantime, other people can consider whether this 20-year-old assault charge is or is not relevant to their particular circumstances. If I'm looking to hire somebody where overall emotional sobriety and self control are important, I'd at least want to find out if he'd cooled his temper in the past 20 years. If I'm interested in the guy's credit before I complete a financial transaction with him, I couldn't care less about his 20 year old assault charge.

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[NeutronCowboy]

What's the problem with knowing that someone got charged for assault in a case that is very understandable?

The right to be forgotten is a terrible solution to the problem of people not being able to judge others properly.

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[MrMickS]

If someone has a criminal record for an assault in the past then that would hang over their head for the rest of their life. Its part of their history.

Re:Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way...

[sir-gold]

Depends on the size of the mistake. Getting into a bar fight = small mistake, ripping off millions of people and causing a financial collapse = very big mistake

who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stan O'Neil?? He's a nobody. Forget him!

As well as this SlashDot article

[sremick]

Soon you won't be finding this Slashdot article in EU Google searches either.

Re:As well as this SlashDot article

[Albanach]

Unless O'Neal becomes famous and therefore relevant for exercising his right to be forgotten?

Wrong Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Stan O’Neal, not O'Neil.

Screw you Peston

[Anonymous Coward]

So what about Robert Peston's right to write an article and have it survive Stan O'Neil's being all butthurt?

Stan O'Neil - Never heard of him, before.

[pubwvj]

Crimmany. Before this demand to be forgotten I had never heard of Stan O'Neil. Now, knowing this I'll be sure not to hire him, etc, etc.

Re:Stan O'Neil - Never heard of him, before.

[jrumney]

Now, knowing this I'll be sure not to hire him

That's OK, he doesn't need to work for you any more, his life is fulfilled now that he's met Barbara Streisand in person. Apparently they had so much in common.

This is hilarious!

[Anonymous Coward]

News outlet reports on business world goings on, a CEO leaving a company that is having financial woes.
Google indexes article.
Years later, person mentioned in article files request to delist new article.
Google delists, advises news outlet of article delisting.
News outlet writes new article about delisting of old article, links to old article.
Google indexes new article.

In the words of Robin Williams: "Mr. President. In the dictionary under Redundant, it says 'see: Redundant'."

Re:This is hilarious!

[Anonymous Coward]

Plagarism! They just copied from the entry for "recursion".

"Forgotten" doesn't mean much, does it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait... so the right to be forgotten is to simply be delisted in one region? You'd think "forgotten" would mean "all regions" and that the article would be entirely removed from Google's servers. Otherwise why not just call it "delisted" and be more accurate?

Indirect References

[ZipK]

Is Google responsible for "forgetting" all possible path to this BBC article? E.g., will this Slashdot article turn up in a Google search in the EU? How about this comment, if I include a link to the original BBC article?

Re:Indirect References

[Anonymous Coward]

A convenient way to blackhole anything whether it is yours or not.

Re:Indirect References

[rsborg]

Is Google responsible for "forgetting" all possible path to this BBC article? E.g., will this Slashdot article turn up in a Google search in the EU? How about this comment, if I include a link to the original BBC article?

Aren't requests effective-dated? If Mr. O'Neal requested at date X to remove searches against his name, that can't be future-effective can it? That would truly be onerous if it was some "standing order" that no searches should result in his name.

On the other hand, why delist an entire article? Can't they just remove that article from the keywords? I get a sense that Google is trying to obey the letter, but not the spirit of the law.

Re:Indirect References

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is responsible for not showing links to the offending article on queries that include that name. Queries that mention the company but not its CEOs name may still link to the article.

He would have to file a separate takedown request to remove this Slashdot story from the index. Again, it would be limited to queries on his name only.

DUDE actually has a point

[cloud.pt]

So dude doesn't want his name's first search result to be an over-hyped headline. Despite being a very decent publication, BBC is mass media, and as such it has to make news outrageously. Dude just made a pondered decision to save some company's face, or was forced to without having a second chance to fix it, and maybe I'm assuming here) is not even directly at fault for the company's losses. Maybe yes maybe not.

I don't think he has to professionally and personally live under that shadow for the rest of his life, just because an indexing algorithm is inclined to shove it up his popper every single time someone wants to know who he is.

I'm guessing someone who really needs to know that info will know it eventually, not through google. His decision to be forgotten will most likely only seclude the info from wannabe conspiracy theorists and amateur employers, which pretty much deserve to NOT know it :)

Re:DUDE actually has a point

[jrumney]

So dude doesn't want his name's first search result to be an over-hyped headline.

I don't know if it was the first search result (I am well outside the EU, but don't see it anywhere in the first 5 pages, so maybe Google's takedown was wider than TFS suggests), but based on what I did see, he's got his work cut out recovering his reputation this way - there are similar articles in NYT, Time, WSJ and pretty much every other major news source outside the jurisdiction of the EU dominating at least the first five pages of results.

Ok, human beings next?

[mi]

Supposedly, a way is discovered to make people forget certain things. Not far-fetched — we can already plant false memories...

I am asking the proponents of this wonderful "right to be forgotten" legislation, whether they would approve of a law, that would allow people to demand, their ex-partners be forced to undergo a procedure to make them forget of the good time the have once shared, for example.

Blame Google.

[Half-pint HAL]

I suspect Google's playing at what is called "malicious compliance". They don't like the law, because they don't like spending money, just making it. So what they really want is to wind up the news outlets to turn them against the law, because only the press has the power to form public opinion. So I'm very glad to see the BBC pushing back rather than swallowing the bait.

Re:Blame Google.

[Ralph Wiggam]

They don't like the law, because they don't like spending money, just making it.

As opposed to all of those other companies that love spending money and hate making it?

Re:Blame Google.

[PopeRatzo]

because only the press has the power to form public opinion.

Are you sure about that?

I'm pretty sure we've seen lots of cases where public opinion was formed in spite of "the press".

When you have a "press" that is either owned outright by corporations or heavily subsidized by corporations (like public media in the US), you're only going to see certain types of opinions. However, I know for a fact that there is a growing number of people with opinions that run counter to the corporatist/oligarch agenda. It's not enough to make a change yet, but it's getting more and more like a dense, dry forest in wildfire season. It's not on fire...yet. But it wouldn't take much.

Re:Blame Google.

[Trepidity]

Yes, it's quite unlikely that this particular example falls within the scope of the EU ruling, which explicitly made exceptions for items of public interest, such as politicians, high-profile actors/businessmen/etc., and similar cases. A CEO of a gigantic company resigning over a public scandal is not the kind of news that is likely to be found outside the public interest, even years later.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect Google's playing at what is called "malicious compliance".

Google doesn't have any choice, and without choice you can't assign motive. QED

Re:Blame Google.

[Stormy Dragon]

So how much money is Google expected to spend reviewing whether seven year old news stories are covered by the ruling? Particularly when they're liable for court costs and damages if the EU court later decides that it is covered by the ruling?

Re:Blame Google.

[duranaki]

I totally agree with the malicious compliance, only I'm glad to see Google doing it. This is a stupid law that seems vaguely like DMCA for removing true information that violates no one's copyright. The EU was nice enough to let Google (pay an army of paralegals to) make a first pass at figuring out which things violated their general terms, so I'm glad Google's using that freedom to point out ludicrous examples before people have forgotten all about this new censorship.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they don't like the law, it's a horrible law. And why shouldn't they wind up the news outlets against this, it isn't as if this law doesn't affect the outlets as well. This is merely dragging them into the playing field, where they should have belonged in the first place.

Re:Blame Google.

[DutchUncle]

"Public Interest" . . . I once sat on a jury on a libel case, in which a financier was suing the Wall Street Journal for having said defamatory things about him. The judge instructed us very clearly that truth is not an absolute defense; that is, even if every single thing in the article was provably true, it would still count as libel if it was (for example) just rehashing old information to defame the financier as he tried to start up a new operation.

If you submit a resume, people check your references, but apparently keeping people from finding out an *executive's* history just requires bigger lawyers.

Re:Blame Google.

[ultranova]

The judge instructed us very clearly that truth is not an absolute defense; that is, even if every single thing in the article was provably true, it would still count as libel if it was (for example) just rehashing old information to defame the financier as he tried to start up a new operation.

Does this mean that credit rating agencies are libeling you if they give you anything but the highest rating? Because isn't "rehashing old information to defame the financier as he tried to start up a new operation" exactly what they're doing then?

Or does these laws only protect the first-class citizens?

Re:Blame Google.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> explicitly made exceptions

And did the EU court also volunteer to review every case and cover the expenses for these reviews? Obviously not, which is the reason most observers predicted EXACTLY this outcome.

Re:Blame Google.

[HiThere]

*I* suspect that they're testing some sort of automated filter that has quite conservative ratings of articles.

You don't expect Google to rate all the articles by hand do you?

OTOH, if the filter were intentionally designed to also be irritating to those who have the power to affect changes in that particular law, I wouldn't be at all surprised. I tend to expect that when people request to be forgotten they will, as far as Google is concerned, become non-persons. The problem will be those other people with the same name.

Re:Blame Google.

[DHalcyon]

If you are a company that offers something, you are responsible for complying with regulations regarding that thing. If you sell meat, you are responsible for ensuring it is not rotten. If you manufacture or sell toys, it is your responsibility to ensure that they do not contain toxic substances nor small parts that are easy to swallow. And if you run a search engine, you have to ensure not to infringe on the privacy rights of your customers. As with any other company, the costs for this are costs you are going to have to calculate with when considering how to do business, and what kinds of business models are viable for you.

I have no idea where technology companies, especially U.S. based ones, get this idea that they should be allowed to infringe upon rights and regulations wherever it gets in the way of doing business simply because what they do is somehow new and cool. That's not how that works. Mercedes-Benz cannot make a car that doesn't follow road safety regulations, even though that may allow for cool things and cheaper cars. And in the same vein, Facebook cannot simply store whatever data they please and sell it to whomever, and Google cannot simply index all things until the end of times, even if all of these things would be very useful for them and possibly allow for neat features - because there are regulations that protect the common interest, which they have to follow.

Re:Blame Google.

[maroberts]

IIRC, there is a time limit on the information that may be used by credit reference agencies. I think its somewhere between 6 and 10 years

Re:Blame Google.

[AmiMoJo]

As much as they have to, just like any other company handling personal data. If a credit reference agency argued that it cost too much to check the data it held and process requests to have to corrected I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fly.

Re:Blame Google.

[Attila Dimedici]

You are missing the point. When Google was requested to "forget" what this guy had done, they did so, even though the EU court ruling might have allowed them to continue to link to the article. Why did they do this? Because it was easier and cheaper than fighting it through the courts. Since they lost the first case, they have nothing to gain from fighting this one.

Re:Blame Google.

[AmiMoJo]

Credit reference agencies are very strictly regulated and not allowed to keep information for more than a clearly defined length of time. Any argument that they were dragging up old information just to defame someone would be rejected on that basis, and instead a challenge to the regulations would have to be made.

Re:Blame Google.

[Rosyna]

"Public Interest" . . . I once sat on a jury on a libel case, in which a financier was suing the Wall Street Journal for having said defamatory things about him. The judge instructed us very clearly that truth is not an absolute defense; that is, even if every single thing in the article was provably true, it would still count as libel if it was (for example) just rehashing old information to defame the financier as he tried to start up a new operation.

What country was this? In the US, truth is most absolutely an absolute defense in defamation cases.

Re:Blame Google.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Isn't "meat inspector" a job of the government, paid for by taxes? The EU didn't provide Google with a "forgotten person" inspector. When it comes to meat, there are clearly objective measurements to determine when it has gone bad. There are no objective criteria handed down to determine when this right applies and when it doesn't. You're asking a for-profit company to personally be responsible for the cost of evaluating every case before them. In fact, you don't even know whether or not they did evaluate this? Given their precedent setting loss, it's not unreasonable to assume that they've set the threshold higher than maybe you would have.

If you were to ask me, the only objective criteria should be as simple as "Was the event newsworthy?" (Yes, because it appeared in the news.) But that's clearly not enough. The information is still allowed to exist, so it's not libelous and the information itself is not illegal, only linking to it is. There is no "registered famous/public person" database (or even a definition of a "public" person). The problem is that you can't just smell this meat and decide if it's gone bad. Now, Google could decide, on its own, to declare that this particular case doesn't pass the undefined threshold, but they have to take on all the expense and risk.

You've come along and demanded that Google toss out all the bad meat (without defining it), and NOW you're complaining when they find it easier to also throw out some good meat. Everyone told you that's what they'd do. It's the ONLY sensible course of action.

Re:Blame Google.

[Stormy Dragon]

If you are a company that offers something

Except in this case it's a company that doesn't offer something.

Re:Blame Google.

[DHalcyon]

Well, Google can certainly choose to just uncritically comply with all requests, for now - which means that they'll deliberately be offering a worse service to save money. As a quasi-monopolist, that's a thing that they can probably keep on doing for quite some time, too. They could also work within the law as interpreted by the courts to work out efficient procedures that everybody can live with, which is a better idea, long term.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meat inspectors do spot checks, they aren't responsible for checking all meat everywhere all the time, companies still have to do that themselves, by working out procedures that make sure meat doesn't go bad, and that bad meat is caught early. In the same way, I would hope that Google is working out procedures to determine what requests they should and should not be complying with, to offer a search engine that returns all relevant results while still respecting the law.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google offers, amongst other things, a search engine service.

Re:Blame Google.

[Stormy Dragon]

Yes, but they don't offer links to this particular article, so what it doesn't matter what the regulator status of said article is. It's like complaining Nokia isn't hiring enough meat inspectors for their cellphone plants.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they do. If they weren't they wouldn't have to stop showing the link.

Re: Blame Google.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

But meat inspection includes objective measures (as I already said). There's also no penalty for overblocking, but significant costs if they miss even one block. Meat inspection is well regulated with documented procedures handed down by regulatory bodies, but you insist that Google write all their own rules and procedures and have no forgiveness if they get anything wrong (apparently in either direction).

Re:Blame Google.

[rtb61]

How about the other part of this story. Why did Alcoa hire this mega loser. What is the existing board of Alcoa's plan. Is there some sort of scam going on. Is the Alcoa board seeking to get all bendy with books, bloat up the bonuses while bankrupting the company and blaming all on this guy with the crappy track record. It's not like Alcoa didn't know, for a director they don't bother with a Google search, the get professionals to track down all the pertinent bits of information, they know exactly who this guy is and what his track record is. Seriously, why did Alcoa hire this guy to be a director and why are they now trying to hide who he is!?

Re:Blame Google.

[AthanasiusKircher]

What country was this? In the US, truth is most absolutely an absolute defense in defamation cases.

No, that's not the standard, though it's often pretty hard to win a libel case against something true. The legal standard for "public figures" is actual malice, which does not require malicious intent -- instead, "actual malice" is just a legal term that means that someone published information with knowledge that the information was false or "with reckless disregard" to whether the information is true or false.

That last thing means that if someone goes on a campaign to smear someone's name deliberately and starts digging up any information that can be found and recklessly publishing it without checking it out, it could be considered libelous, even if true.

For private persons or lesser known figures, there also is a false light tort available in some states (other states group such claims under regular defamation or libel claims). This can also apply when true statements are used in a misleading way or bring attention to someone in a misleading way. (For an extreme example, if you published a photo of John Doe with the caption "John Doe, New York Resident" next to a headline "Sex Offenders Go Free in New York," even though everything was "true," it could mislead readers.)

Were either of these situations likely in GP's case. I don't know. But truth is NOT an absolute defense against libel in all cases.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

because only the press has the power to form public opinion.

Are you sure about that?

I'm pretty sure we've seen lots of cases where public opinion was formed in spite of "the press".

In spite of the press or not, the dangers of the court's ruling need to come to the front and center to the public. People need to come to realize that the censorship this court has allowed is destructive of everyone's freedom. When people abuse power, they should not be able to cover it up.

Re:Blame Google.

[khallow]

So bottom line is that it's a lot cheaper to comply with the law even when an extensive, costly review (and possibly a subsequent costly lawsuit) would determine that you didn't have to.

Re:Blame Google.

[khallow]

They could also work within the law as interpreted by the courts to work out efficient procedures that everybody can live with, which is a better idea, long term.

No, I think the malicious compliance approach is more effective long term. I think when European politicians get their press and websites dropped, then we'll start seeing some fixing of this terrible law. While efficient procedures for compliance leads to no incentives for improving or eliminating the law in question.

Re:Blame Google.

[complete loony]

It sounds like they are trying to create a "Streisand effect". Publicise these interesting cases where a link is taken down so that the information is not hidden, but actually spread further.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you from EU country by any chance?

Re:Blame Google.

[NeutronCowboy]

No, not personal data. PRIVATE data. Plus, Google is handling other companies' data that has been put by them onto the public internet. Why the fuck is Google responsible for what is in it? Are you going to blame trash collectors for what people throw out on the highway?

Re:Blame Google.

[AmiMoJo]

In the US, truth is most absolutely an absolute defense in defamation cases.

What happens if someone decides to ruin your life by constantly publicizing mistakes you made decades ago, for no other reason than harming you? I suppose you would have to seek some other kind of legal remedy, some kind of C&D order. Well, under UK law we use libel for that.

In either case truth is only a defence if the person publishing the material is not doing so maliciously.

Re:Blame Google.

[thegarbz]

As much as they have to, just like any other company handling personal data.

Yep and that's exactly what they did. They had to at a very minimum remove the link, or investigate if it was infact bad and then make a decision. The cheap method is to remove a link. I fully expect this to be automated soon so it's even cheaper.

But that's beside the point. I actually have a more interesting question for you: When did providing a link to a news article become "handling personal data"?
If I copy http://search.slashdot.org/com... and post it to my blog am I also handling personal data? Do you have the right to request me to remove that link?

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Googler here. This is completely incorrect and would be a most unethical way of proceeding and there is no way my employer would countenance such an act and you should be ashamed for even thinking so. Er.

Re:Blame Google.

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem is that there is no reason for people like this guy to NOT take them to court over this, even if he does not qualify for being "forgotten". His reasons for wanting this article de-listed are important enough to him to be worth what it would cost him to challenge Google in court. Basically, there are no "efficient procedures that everybody can live with." No matter what procedures Google put in place, this guy, and people like him, would go to court. It is not worth Google's trouble to deal with that. While it is possible that the EU could put such procedures in place, Google cannot do so because, no matter what procedures they choose, people will challenge them in court.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Malicious compliance??!! Are you kidding me? You've never been on the receiving end of abuse of power by a government operative have you?

Re:Blame Google.

[Maxo-Texas]

If it hadn't been one of 250,000 requests, I might agree with you.

Besides- who is most likely to make use of a right or law like this?

Am I going to take the time and effort to remove information that I played ultimate frisbee and dnd in 1999?

Most likely only information that a person considers negative is going to be removed.

Of course- the striesand effect is in play here. I know more about o'neal now than I did before and just as Oliver pointed out- the main thing I know about O'neal is that a BBC article about his criminal misbehavior was removed from the internet.

However- less likely to occur for the other 249,999 articles.

Re:Blame Google.

[Half-pint HAL]

No, because not deleting would be complying with the law.

Re:Blame Google.

[Half-pint HAL]

My brother is a health and safety officer for a large private-sector industrial facility. When new equipment and materials are brought on-site, he has to perform risk assessments to assure they comply with the appropriate legislation, and this is at his employers' expense. Why should Google be any different? Not knowing what's inside a box is a poor excuse for lack of due diligence. In fact, it's negligence.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a pity the judge didn't also make sure you understood that it was libel and not defamation.

Re:Blame Google.

[khallow]

because not deleting would be complying with the law.

And how often should Google be willing to take that to court to find out? They know they'll be complying with the law by automatically blocking contested search results. They don't know they'll be complying with the law otherwise.

Re: Blame Google.

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Does he follow a checklist? Is there anything vague or undefined on the checklist? Is he regularly expected to have his judgements second guessed? Was he trained by a professional organization of inspectors, or was he just told one day to create the inspection industry?

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of your dislike of Google and love for the British Bias Corporation I suspect Google may be - gasp - innocent in this. Someone made a request to remove the document. Under EU law Google must comply.

It is unlikely they focused in on this document without an external request.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any scumbag hiding behind that smokescreen isn't worth the 40k gold toilet he's shitting into.

Re:Blame Google.

[luis_a_espinal]

> As opposed to all of those other companies that love spending money and hate making it?

Low UID completely missing the point. You must be in your 40s at least by now. Too bad your mental development is still stuck at the level of a dumbass teenager.

That's an invective, not a counter argument.

Re:Blame Google.

[Half-pint HAL]

As Scottish nationalist (small n), I'm not exactly the BBC's number 1 fan. But complying with the law doesn't mean taking it down in this instance, as the law states that figures in the public spotlight are fair game.

Re:Blame Google.

[Half-pint HAL]

They don't like the law, because they don't like spending money, just making it.

As opposed to all of those other companies that love spending money and hate making it?

Exactly the same, of course. My point is just that we shouldn't paint Google as the "good guys" for opposing a law that costs them hard cash.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

In common law, the truth is a defense to slander (verbal) but not written (libel) defamation.

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

so Hitler has the right to be forgotten or the holocaust has to be forgotten?european laws are idiots

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

they have to meet meat standards, or have justice meted out to them.

Re:Blame Google.

[Rosyna]

That last thing means that if someone goes on a campaign to smear someone's name deliberately and starts digging up any information that can be found and recklessly publishing it without checking it out, it could be considered libelous, even if true.

Reckless disregard would mean you don't care if they statements are facts or not. And that by putting false information in with facts, you want to mislead the reader/listener. If all items were fact, then a compilation of all items would still be truth and is an absolute defense (in the US). As soon as you make (knowingly) false statements that a reasonable person would believe, only then can the defamed begin to have a case (in the US).

The important part is "a reasonable person would believe them true".

The US has the strongest free speech laws in the land when it comes to defamation. (Because in order to protect the right to dissent, you must protect the right to criticize).

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like "malicious compliance". I hope Google gets even more anal about it. Stupid law...BTW if people don't like Google they can use yahoo search, ask jeeves, ask grandmother, bing, etc...

Re:Blame Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

But in this case Google isn't handling personal data. That would be the people who published the original articles. Google is just making it easier to find those articles.

And you know that if people file requests and Google doesn't take the links down, they're going to get sued, which will jack their legal costs way the hell up.

Law of Unintended Consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

strikes again

Article is wrong

[Halo1]

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe.

That is plain wrong. The judgement only requires that people can ask that searches for their name (and /only/ their name) no longer turn up results that are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant".

Searching for Merrill's mess, Merill Lynch subprime etc will all still include his article in the results and no one has any right under the ruling to object to that, even if it mentions Stan Oâ(TM)Neal's name in connection with shady business deals a thousand times (just like no one can object against this post turning up in response to such queries).

Keeping that in mind, I do agree with the author that the article should not be excluded even when searching for Stan Oâ(TM)Neal's name, as the inadequacy/irrelevancy test does not fly here in my opinion either. He did say Google will get back to him on that point.

Re:Article is wrong

[rahvin112]

Define "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant".

Keep in mind your definition must apply to every single situation and under no circumstance a judge will disagree with your assessment and assign damages. Because that is what Google is facing, people can have any search result that lists their name removed if it meets whatever arbitrary definition of those three words a judge wishes to interpret.

There is a very legitimate argument that those terms are so vague Google has no choice whatsoever but to simply delist every single thing they are asked to delist. The european listings are going to be swiss cheese and worthless in 6 months.

Re:Article is wrong

[Halo1]

Define "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant".

Keep in mind your definition must apply to every single situation and under no circumstance a judge will disagree with your assessment and assign damages.

You can go first by defining such a rule about the first, second, fourth, ... amendment to the US Constitution. I'll even let you include all judgements by the Supreme Court on that particular amendment. Laws and judgements involving fundamental/inalienable (human) rights are never condensable into a simplistic rule.

Because that is what Google is facing, people can have any search result that lists their name removed if it meets whatever arbitrary definition of those three words a judge wishes to interpret.

The judge has to interpret the entire judgement by the ECHR, which is quite a bit more elaborate than that.

There is a very legitimate argument that those terms are so vague Google has no choice whatsoever but to simply delist every single thing they are asked to delist.

And there is a very legitimate argument that it does not have to do that. Such expressions don't say very much.

Given that Google strongly opposed the judgement and given the fact that the further interpretation of the judgement has not yet been set in stone, it's a bit silly to conclude that Google now doesn't have any choice, in particular since the judgement also explicitly mentions that search engine operators only have to act ‘within the framework of their responsibilities, powers and capabilities’. A good and fairly short analysis sketching the picture of the various points of interest can be found here.

There is simply no black and white argument to be made either way right now, because while the judgement does start from considering the right to privacy as trumping both economic interests of search engine operators and the public's "general" interest into details about other people's lives, it does counterbalance/nuance this in various ways. Given the beating that the right to privacy has been getting lately, I personally don't mind at all that it now got a pretty strong reinforcement.

Re:Article is wrong

[rahvin112]

You can go first by defining such a rule about the first, second, fourth, ... amendment to the US Constitution. I'll even let you include all judgements by the Supreme Court on that particular amendment. Laws and judgements involving fundamental/inalienable (human) rights are never condensable into a simplistic rule.

Which is totally and completely irrelevant to this discussion and a rather poor attempt at a straw man.

The judge has to interpret the entire judgement by the ECHR, which is quite a bit more elaborate than that.

Even if it's more elaborate it's still vague and undefined and allows the person requesting the removal to ask for damages if Google guesses wrong.

And there is a very legitimate argument that it does not have to do that.

Not there isn't.

Given that Google strongly opposed the judgement and given the fact that the further interpretation of the judgement has not yet been set in stone, it's a bit silly to conclude that Google now doesn't have any choice, in particular since the judgement also explicitly mentions that search engine operators only have to act ‘within the framework of their responsibilities, powers and capabilities’.

Google has absolutely no idea how individual judges will interpret this rule because as you say there is no case law developed and each individual country could develop different rules about how it applies. They guess wrong and they get hit with damages, this is on top of facing potentially 5 or 6 digit numbers of lawsuits (50K requests in a couple days could be millions per year) all over the entire EU whose costs would be staggering even for a company as large as Google. Google is not a civil rights NGO. They have no obligation to throw all their profit to the wind trying to define what those three words mean. It would be beyond foolish for them to even get involved. Their only sensible option is to simply delist everything requested.

Maybe if you want to put YOUR money on the line and offer it to Google to challenge this bad ruling go ahead, but don't expect them to put their own ass on the line for it. No company is going to challenge any of these delisting requests, it's far too dangerous and costly. If they receive 100k requests and 1% are "bad" they'd face over 1000 lawsuits for guessing wrong. 1000 lawsuits would take at least 1000 lawyers for probably upwards of 100 billable hours at around $500 an hour which is 50 million dollars in just legal expenses. In reality each case would need 3-5 lawyers, a couple paralegals and a bunch of expert witnesses and probably more than 500 hours overall. If they get even half of them wrong and have to pay $50k in damages each time they will bankrupt their European divisions. The magnitude of this ruling makes it economically impossible for anyone to challenge any delisting request. Even having a lawyer review each request for validity would set them back hundreds of millions of dollars. Any attempt to argue otherwise is either willfully ignorant of the reality of business or a pigheaded stupidity that it's Google's job to defend free speech. It's not and they will do whatever is cheapest for them as they should. This is a European problem that can only be fixed at the legislative level by the people of Europe. This "right to be forgotten" is an unworkable mess that is impossible to police and it's going to absolutely gut the value of search engines in Europe when looking up individuals. That's the bed they made and now they get to lay in it.

Re:Article is wrong

[Halo1]

You can go first by defining such a rule about the first, second, fourth, ... amendment to the US Constitution. I'll even let you include all judgements by the Supreme Court on that particular amendment. Laws and judgements involving fundamental/inalienable (human) rights are never condensable into a simplistic rule.

Which is totally and completely irrelevant to this discussion and a rather poor attempt at a straw man.

How is asking you to do exactly the same as what you were asking of me a straw man? I was just trying to illustrate what I wrote above: "Laws and judgements involving fundamental/inalienable (human) rights are never condensable into a simplistic rule."

Your argument of Google not being a civil rights NGO (even leaving aside the issue that, once again, this is about a clash between different civil rights rather than against the oppression of civil rights period), or me spending money on fighting the ruling, are however great straw men: I never claimed they would fight it out of altruism, and I literally said I didn't mind the judgement at all (so why would I want to spend money fighting it?).

Google would try to convince judges that it interpreted the judgement in a reasonable way simply because the alternative seriously threatens their business model. As to the drama about Google risking fines and whatnot: companies skirt tax, employment, competition and other laws/judgements all the time if those even threaten to reduce their bottom line. Not to mention that, again, this judgement explicitly gives search engine companies the mandate to decide in part for themselves what is reasonable and what is not, unlike tax/employment/competition laws.

Re:Article is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a strawman, because constitution does not require precise definitions to work. It's not as much a law, as a set of guidelines and benchmarks for making laws. Only entity that has to uphold is lawmakers and only entitity that needs to interpret it is the Supreme Court and it does so on case by case basis.

When laws that have to be upheld and interpreted by everyone are written in such ambiguous terms - it's a failure of law making process.

Imagine other common laws written without precise definitions - like, say "No driver shall drive so fast as to endanger others". How fast is "endangering others"? I'm completely fine driving at 100mph, I'm godlike with cars. No, you almost hit me driving at 20mph, clearly you were driving fast enough to endanger others. Our traffic division needs funding, so as a traffic cop I'll just chime in and say even 15mph would be too fast for you. Pay up!

Oh well, let's just all drive at 5mph lest somebody complains about "endangering, or simply take every driver to the court to decide how fast is too fast for them. Yay, helpful and effective speeding laws!

Re:Article is wrong

[rahvin112]

How is asking you to do exactly the same as what you were asking of me a straw man?

The first reason would be it's Europe and not the US. Each state in Europe is a sovereign entity. The second would be that this is not a constitutional item, it's a court ruling that expands a constitutional issue and is vague on it's face with very few guidelines for application. The third reason is combining 1 and 2 you have an intentional vague ruling that will be interpreted differently in all sovereign member states based on their own common law. The fourth is that Europe has a loser pays system, if Google guesses wrong about the applicability of those 3 words they not only pay damages they cover the legal expenses of the victor and they don't get to claim their action was in good faith. And the fifth is that my question was an example intended to show how intentionally vague the court ruling was and didn't not expect a response. Yours was a sarcastic straw man about a completely unrelated issue.

Google would try to convince judges that it interpreted the judgement in a reasonable way simply because the alternative seriously threatens their business model.

You don't get it do you? It's not a threat to their business at all. No search engine is going to challenge these delisting requests and everyone will remove the same data (because no one is going to remove it from just one search engine, in no time there will be businesses offering to remove data for people, it will probably be the SEO companies). With every search engine removing the same data from their indexes there is no competitive disadvantage for them. These search results will disappear all over Europe whereas Google and other US engines won't remove the listings from their US indexes this puts all European search engine competitors at significant disadvantage to their US counterparts as the Europeans will likely just start using the US indexes for these searches.

Or in other words it's completely unworkable and stupid attempt to create the memory hole without the ability to filter the entire world.

Chilling Effects clone for search removals?

[timrod]

How long until a clone of Chilling Effects comes around and indexes all of the removals under the "right to be forgotten" law? Google could even link to them the same way they do Chilling Effects for sites that have been de-listed due to DMCA notices.

Re:Chilling Effects clone for search removals?

[GameboyRMH]

They already do this in fact, using the very same Chilling Effects links.

Has Mr O'Neal never heard of...

[Flavianoep]

Streisand effect?

Re:Has Mr O'Neal never heard of...

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, it probably won't be long before his name and this story is linked from the Streisand effect wikipedia page as an example.

Stan O'Neal

[Anonymous Coward]

Not "O'Neil". For future reference, here's ample detail about Mr. O'Neal's activities at Merrill Lynch on the Wikipedia page, and of course the article cited in the original submission has the link to the article that has been "removed" from google. I'm pretty sure that in addition to his past transgressions, Mr. O'Neal is more likely to be remembered for his censorship efforts too thanks to the Streisand Effect.

Thanks for the Reminder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Short sell Alcoa...

wait

[Charliemopps]

Wait a second. We have to think on this critically.
It was my understanding that the ruling meant that if someone searched for YOU they wouldn't find things about you anymore.
If the BBC had an article about raising Goats, and that article mentioned John Sheldon the internets foremost Goat expert...
If you searched for John Sheldon, you'd not find anything. But if you searched for "raising goats" you would.

Is Google playing games here? Or is this really what is legally required? It seems rather strange that they'd remove an entire BBC article from ALL search results just because 1 guy was mentioned. What if they had a forum section like most news sites do and this guy was an avid poster. Could he then get the entire BBC removed from google? I pretty much comment on every Slashdot story (or damned near it) If I used my real name could I get Slashdot de-listed? If so, this is going to be hilarious.

Re:wait

[MobyDisk]

They didn't remove the article entirely.

we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

They don't say which searches, but the wording implies that searches for Stan O'Neal will be affected. But searches for the former CEO of Merril Lynch should work just fine.

Re:wait

[Charliemopps]

So... anybody in Europe want to try this out and let us know?

The next few weeks will be super fun if this actually works.

Re:wait

[mdragan]

Doesn't seem to work. Tried "former CEO of Merill Lynch" and "Merrill's mess". Neither gives me a link to the article, so it seems the article itself was removed from the index.

Re:wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Had to get fairly specific to get the 2009 article to come up on the first page (lots of hits about the recent de-listing), but this gives first hit, searching from Germany
https://www.google.de/search?q=Stan+O%27neal+merill+lynch&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=Stan+O%27neal+merrill+lynch+peston+site%3ABBC.co.uk

Funnily enough, that still results in a little note at the bottom stating:
Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more

Re:wait

[Anonymous Coward]

I hat to use "former ceo of merrill lynch site:bbc.co.uk robertpeston mess" to get the link as the first result. Only "former CEO of Merril Lynch" finds more than 7 million pages.

EU has gone too far for my tastes

[HeckRuler]

"right to be forgotten"
Sounds like a con-artists wet-dream.

I understand the whole forgiveness thing. Some people deserve a second chance. Some people can change.
But what about my right to tell my friends that that asshole just screwed me out of a ton of money and that he can't be trusted?

Re:EU has gone too far for my tastes

[gstoddart]

Well, the EU has gone to far in the direction of personal rights, and the obligations that imposes on companies.

While the US has gone too far in the direction of corporate rights, and how they can screw us over at will. Because, you know, corporations now have religious freedom to be assholes.

But what about my right to tell my friends that that asshole just screwed me out of a ton of money and that he can't be trusted?

Oddly enough, as long as you can do it without actually committing libel or slander, you still have this right. You just have to phrase it correctly.

The EU 'right to be forgotten' only applies to search engines. It does not (AFAIK) restrict private individuals from actually remembering this stuff, telling others about, and providing links to it.

You just won't be able to find the links using a search engine.

In other news....

[markhb]

A family is reporting that a stranger named "Stan O'Neil" has invaded their home, apparently using a key to the premises, and is claiming to be their husband and father. The woman who heads the family says she does not remember ever seeing the man before, but could not name the father of her children or the person who gave her what appeared to be wedding and engagement rings.

Dictatorship

[guises]

Had to read that three times before it stopped saying dictatorship and started saying directorship.

The right to be forgotten is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

This law is just a workaround for the fact that humans don't think critically about the possible inaccuracy of information found on the Internet. Censorship (which is exactly what this is) is a greater crime against society, and should not be used here.

Instead, we should require that employers, load evaluators, etc., be limited to what sources of information they can use when making a life-impacting decision. Such a law is hard to enforce, of course, but is better than this misguided censorship.

Re:The right to be forgotten is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about some lessons for critical evaluation of information sources?

Re:The right to be forgotten is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The problem with quotations on the Internet is that it is difficult to verify the authenticity of the source."
--Abraham Lincoln.

Re:The right to be forgotten is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

...humans don't think critically about the possible inaccuracy of information found on the Internet...

Irrelevant. What's worrying about the "right to be forgotten" is that it includes matters of public record.

Pathetic orwellian union

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic orwellian union of communist idiots.
I hope my country leaves this shit asap.

Funny he is in the aluminum business now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait weren't Goldman Sachs and a few other investment companies involved in a scheme where they shipped aluminum ingots back and forth between warehouses in order to drive it's price up on the commodities market. Nice to see this guy is just as much of a Shyster as he always was.

Re:Funny he is in the aluminum business now.

[GameboyRMH]

You remember correctly:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Re:Funny he is in the aluminum business now.

[blackiner]

Exactly what I thought when I read this. Basically they are only allowed to hold onto aluminum supplies for a limited amount of time (I guess to encourage them to sell instead of hoard it?). To get around this they would load it all up onto trucks and drive around for a bit, then take it back to the warehouse. This let them artificially control the aluminum supplies and make massive profits. http://www.forexlive.com/blog/...

Re: Not Voluntarily

[TaoPhoenix]

In general I applaud the EU ruling *if* it really gets implemented fairly. But there's all sorts of wiggles to mess around with.

We've been focusing on "that one guy" but look at this note way at the bottom of the article:

"It is only a few days since the ruling has been implemented - and Google tells me that since then it has received a staggering 50,000 requests for articles to be removed from European searches."

And that's 50K requests in a few days.

Google can afford to hire "the army of paralegals", but does the ruling extend to smaller services? You can delist-bomb a small site out of existence when someone manages a "DDOS Distributed De-List of Service" attack on every article in their entire catalog. Then you get games where people try to de-list each other's materials.

Not that I am a fan of Google, but I can bet a senior lawyer at Google is saying "well hell, besides the cost, if we have taken down seventeen million articles on all kinds of topics, there goes our ten year competitive advantage of useful searches."

Forget him.

[Anonymous Coward]

All references to this Stan O'Neil should be filtered and removed. No results on any search, anywhere. Remove him from the web. Remove any pages (including financial statements from his companies) that mention his name.

Personally, I think Google is only the messenger and anyone who wants to be forgotten should contact the host of the web reference, but if the laws say that someone should be removed from Google searches, then Google should do a thorough job of it. Google only reports what's there, doesn't create it...

Congrats EU

[argStyopa]

Well, you got what you wanted - a right to be forgotten.

So while John the unfairly-maligned ex-husband can have all the nasty stuff his ex-wife said about him deleted from searches, so can Jim the pedophile, Jeff the corrupt politicians, and Jerry the worthless CEO.

In fact, this ruling has in a sense undermined the entire value of the internet where it comes to the power of journalism and public voice.

I guess it's worth it?

Re:Congrats EU

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Does the ruling apply only to Google or to search engines in general? If as I suspect it's the former, we should really be asking further questions like how one commercial entity came to represent the entire value of the internet...

AWESOME!!!!!

[gelfling]

EUocrats will get their own fascist censorship shoved down their throats.

I have to wonder

[aitikin]

If Google is really just trying to show how flawed this is. After all, if you search him (I popped over to google.co.uk as I'm in the US) that blog certainly does not come up, but about the entire first page of hits (especially if you throw bbc in as well) is about how that page will not come up because of this ruling...

Re:I have to wonder

[MobyDisk]

It would be awesome if browsers provide add-ins that search using the US Google, then highlight the differences.

Re:I have to wonder

[paavo512]

The implementation of this Google policy seems quite strange. The article "BBC - Peston's Picks: Merrill's mess" can be found via google.com, it is the first (non-advertised) hit in https://www.google.com/#q=Stan.... When searching via a Google site in Europe (https://www.google.ee/#q=Stan+O%27Neal+site%3Awww.bbc.co.uk), the title "BBC - Peston's Picks: Merrill's mess" does not appear in the search results, but there is an entry:

Forbidden - BBC
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/.../2007/10/.../index.htm...Tõlgi see leht
29.10.2007 - All weekend, wave after wave of schadenfreude has been crashing on the head of Stan O'Neal, the chairman of Merrill Lynch. After Merrill ... BBC News - Have Your Say

When clicking on this title (http://www.google.ee/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fblogs%2Fthereporters%2Frobertpeston%2F2007%2F10%2F29%2Findex.html&ei=IeG0U5O0NYa0PL-BgbgJ&usg=AFQjCNEfFXYrZu2W1GwPGwaq9Z19g_171Q&bvm=bv.70138588,d.ZWU ), the original article appears! So, effectively Google displays the result, but says it is forbidden to read it? I'm baffled.

Same old game

[Anonymous Coward]

The rich and powerful have always reserved the right to rewrite history to their benefit. Turn the page...

Re: Not Voluntarily

[Anonymous Coward]

if we have taken down seventeen million articles on all kinds of topics, there goes our ten year competitive advantage of useful searches.

So, have a national/international registry and submit removal/purge request there. All search engine operators are required to comply with the de-indexing registry.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[Stormy Dragon]

We can call it the Ministry of Truth

That was fast

[Anonymous Coward]

I expected European companies to at least give it a few months before scrubbing the Internet of any of their wrongdoings.

I guess I was a bit slow on my assumption.

article is still in google

[Anonymous Coward]

Searching for a phrase from the article ("Merill announced those colossal losses") or other combinations of keywords finds the article just fine:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Merrill+announced+those+colossal+losses

The article has not been removed from google. It only doesn't show if the specific search terms are the guy's name.

Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten

[Mister Liberty]

Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/leg...
etc.

Pass the word.

Re:Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten

[Anonymous Coward]

The request for removal hits Stan O'Neal himself. He can no longer considered as a wise leader in the EU area as he has not apparently experienced complete, utter failure according to Google.

Re:Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten

[backwardsposter]

Ugh, I'm always so bad that these things. Okay, here goes...

Stand O'Neal, you will not be forgotten.

Pass it on...

Right to be forgotten

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder how this will work for Experian, TransUnion, Equifax and other credit reporting services? I demand they forget anything bad about me.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[Anonymous Coward]

In general I applaud the EU ruling *if* it really gets implemented fairly.

Yeah, that's the problem with your kind: you applaud any stupid idea, and your excuse is that if it fails, it's the fault of the people implementing it. It gives you a feeling of moral superiority and an excuse to hurl moral outrage at others.

Sorry, man, but idiots like you are the cause of these problems.

Malicious Compliance

[rsborg]

From das wiki:

Malicious compliance is the behavior of a person who intentionally inflicts harm by strictly following the orders of management or following legal compulsions, knowing that compliance with the orders will cause a loss of some form resulting in damage to the manager's business or reputation, or a loss to an employee or subordinate. It has the effect of harming leadership, or the leadership harming a subordinate.[1] A specific form of industrial action that utilizes this is work-to-rule.

Also see Lawful Evil.

Cat and mouse

[petes_PoV]

So the guy had an old article removed.
The journalist then writes a *new* article, commenting on the removal of the old article
The guy then requires the *new* article gets delisted, too. So the journalist ....

And so it continues until one party or the other gets bored, dies, or realises that all these article, this MOUNTAIN of articles are all still available (and increasing in number) on other search engines and that since new articles can be submitted faster than old ones taken down (and presumably the guy is paying a service to issue take-downs on his behalf) he's paying money and achieving the opposite of what was intended.

Re:Cat and mouse

[MrMickS]

Which is exactly why Robert Peston wrote the new article. It becomes self defeating for the person wanting to be forgotten because the new articles bring the deed he is trying to suppress into the current. If it goes on it also creates a large number of 'this article has been removed' messages in the Google results, which in itself would be a marker.

It's better to leave this to the legal system ruling on the original articles. If the article is removed then, and only then, should a search engine have to remove links to it, cached copies etc.

Back to spending hours at the library...

[DeathByLlama]

Journalist: // Sits at the library sorting through articles, looking for that 2007 piece on O'Neal //
Journalist: Dang, I wish there was a better way of doing this
Google: I can help you!
EU: No. You can't. Journalist, I'm afraid you're going to have to do this by hand if you want the data.
Journalist: But the data is still there... can't Google just help me sift through it?
EU: No. Go home. There's nothing to see here.
EU: // Thinks about removing the data all together. Stupid libraries, always archiving news... We should just write our own history. //

Unintended consequences

[rickb928]

Perhaps some fine-tuning is in order. If you continue to be a public person, and being a director of a major corporation does qualify yopu as 'public', then perhaps the laws should be more strict. Challenging results for accuracy of the underlying information would be a hugely entertaining process.

make him an unperson

[slothman32]

If Google must remove some information about a public person that obviously shouldn't be removed then they should purge all remnants of him from their pages.
Yes that includes this one.
According to Google he doesn't exist. hehe

Not even a citizen of the EU?

[jblb]

Is Stan O'Neal even a citizen or resident of an EU country? How does the European Court ruling even apply to him?

Hang on...

[Rashdot]

Stan O'Neal isn't even European. Why did he allegedly get to use this European ruling?

Re:Hang on...

[Anonymous Coward]

Stan O'Neal isn't even European. Why did he allegedly get to use this European ruling?

Because the BBC is based in Europe. Duh.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[Anonymous Coward]

This is censorship. There is *no* way of implementing it fairly.

People judge others based on inaccurate or outdated information found on the Internet. That is unfair. Attempting to fix this problem by censoring the data is just piling more unfairness on top of it.

Censorship does more harm than good.

wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

somehow I thought "right to be forgotten" was written to give the young and stupid a chance to remove potentially damaging posts from FB, and the like (goog removes them from the results).. I DID NOT think it applied to CEOs who fucked up and cost their companies money. ....wait..
"I'm Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor. This blog is my take on the business stories and issues that matter."

the piece in question is opinion.. not "news" or "fact" .. that's better than removing a legit news piece.

Most excellent

[fustakrakich]

Everything is going exactly as planned.

Massive Losses

[Anonymous Coward]

There are never massive losses without there being massive gains. Can we get the rest of the story to appear in the searches?

Could be a commenter

[Anonymous Coward]

While O'Neal is the only name in the article, he's not the only name on the page. It could just as well be one of the commenters using his/her own name.

Try searching for those names and see who doesn't turn up.

Is Peston playing the game?

[Crookdotter]

I get the feeling that by writing another article about it, which will be indexed by Google, Peston has worked around the problem of information going missing.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[MrMickS]

Double plus good

US law isn't directly relevant here.

[pr100]

Truth might not be an absolute defence to defamation in the US, but it is in English law.

But in any case this is not about defamation. It's a different thing.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[thegarbz]

You can delist-bomb a small site out of existence when someone manages a "DDOS Distributed De-List of Service" attack on every article in their entire catalog. Then you get games where people try to de-list each other's materials.

Yeah well why not? The USA passed the DMCA, why should they have a monopoly on stupid laws with serious flaws and a high cost of implementation?

Right to be forgotten = more notoriety

[fygment]

So an individual in a publicly traded company, was the subject of a public article, and now Google now has to overlook it for "certain searches", while other searches will find the article about the article not being available in "certain searches".

Did the people who ruled on the 'right to be forgotten' even use the internet and Google?

Did Mr O'Neal do this as a publicity stunt to enhance his 'bad boy' image, a kind of reverse psychology thing?

Er... BBC is a government agency, not profit

[evilandi]

>When you have a "press" that is either owned outright by corporations or heavily subsidized by corporation

Um, this is a story about the BBC.

You do know they're a British government agency, right? Categorically prohibited from any involvement with private corporations or any kind of profitmaking in their onshore activities, and with a board of trustees appointed by democratically-elected ministers?

Re:Er... BBC is a government agency, not profit

[PopeRatzo]

You do know they're a British government agency, right?

And the British government is an agency of The City bankers and imperial corporatists.

So what's your point?

When you can give an example of the BBC doing or saying something that runs counter to the interests of the economic elite, let me know.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[strikethree]

In general I applaud the EU ruling *if* it really gets implemented fairly. But there's all sorts of wiggles to mess around with.

Erm, how can you possibly, in good conscience, support the EU ruling?

Google is just indexing what is there. If the EU is going to try and implement a "Right to be Forgotten" law, then it should be the responsibility of the web site hosting the material to remove it. It will then fall out of all search engine indexes. As it stands now, I can STILL access whatever Google removes from their indexes.

I suspect it was "easier" to go after Google than the "right" of free speech. It just does not make sense.

New commenters - read the article!

[Jumunquo]

"UPDATE 17:20, 3 July 2014
So there have been some interesting developments in my encounter with the EU's "Right to be Forgotten" rules.
It is now almost certain that the request for oblivion has come from someone who left a comment about the story.
So only Google searches including his or her name are now impossible.
Which means you can still find the article if you put in the name of Merrill's ousted boss, "Stan O'Neal"."

Please read the updated BBC article

[Anonymous Coward]

The BBC article has been updated. It seems the executive was not the one requesting to be forgotten, but one of the posters in the comments section below.

1984?

[servant]

George Orwell was right, and the Mac isn't part of it.

Hilarious fake Streisand effect

[airwan]

An interesting development yesterday in TFA : the request wasn't made in the name of the former CEO but by a person who left a comment on the original 2007 article. In other words, the article won't show up when looking up the name of the person who made the comment, but it will still show up when googling for Stan O'Neal.

Maybe Stan O'Neal knew too well he wasn't going to be forgotten. If he didn't, what a powerful reminder !

Nevertheless, here is the catch :

• - if you want google to stop indexing things you published by yourself, you submit a request and Google will notify you. End of story, as you are both the submitter of the request and the publisher of the original content.
• - if you want google to stop indexing things about you published by others, you submit a request and Google will notify you and the publisher. The publisher is perfectly within his right to challenge Google decision and/or the original request in court.I doubt a high-profile public person will win such a case against the press. Lawsuit or not, I bet there will be a huge Streisand effect if such a person even tries to use that kind of regulation to hide a such newspiece about him. This would be a blatant distortion of the intent of the law.

Re: Not Voluntarily

[Anonymous Coward]

our historian took many just to study and interpret the past histories of our losing heritage and now this idiot law which says that you have to remove all historical facts is like forgetting how those German s of the past was a nation were jews were persecuted and was treated like animals?who the hell made that law anyway?

wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is playing at us.how it made that decision to follow that idiot law without taking a stand against the ruling.where the hell will the cia or the police get information when it was removed in their computer?

Re: Not Voluntarily

[pubwvj]

"Not that I am a fan of Google"

I am a fan of Google. Not so much the company but the tool. It is incredibly useful. I remember back in the dark ages when we had to use libraries and carve our notes into clay tablets. Pisser that was nasty.

I object to the European Union trying to censor the world. They have no business burning our books, trashing our libraries, destroying our data. It's history. It's real. They have no natural order right to be forgotten. They have no right to impose their absurdity on those of us in other countries. If the EU wants to subjugate their population to stupidity by censoring that is bad enough but leave the rest of the world alone.

So, we all have an obligation to remember. Keep lists of those who demand to be forgotten. Discuss it. Blog it. Tweet it. Facebook it. Each request to be forgotten should be documented. Google could do this easily enough by posting all requests. That would quickly quell this dumb demand with a Striesand effect.

Link it:
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2014/0...