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Following EU Ruling, BBC Article Excluded From Google Searches

Posted by Soulskill on from the system-and-method-to-break-the-internet dept.

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.

30 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Blaming Google by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Blaming Google by EasyTarget · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
    2. Re:Blaming Google by Albanach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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certainly seem reasonable to allow the person responsible for an article to highlight why it is still relevant or not outdated since often they will have better knowledge of the subject area than a paralegal.

    3. Re:Blaming Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Blaming Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  2. Oops. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3

    No public figure exception? Our bad.

  3. Before you laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Before you laugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

  4. Who controls the past... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Who controls the past... by EasyTarget · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1984; the instruction manual for our lords and masters.

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

      --
      "Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
  5. Whoops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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

      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.

  6. Pivotal Decision That Went The Wrong Way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. As well as this SlashDot article by sremick · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  8. Stan O'Neil - Never heard of him, before. by pubwvj · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  9. This is hilarious! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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'."

  10. Indirect References by ZipK · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  11. Ok, human beings next? by mi · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  12. Blame Google. by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
    1. Re:Blame Google. by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Blame Google. by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    3. Re:Blame Google. by duranaki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Blame Google. by DutchUncle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "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.

    5. Re:Blame Google. by ultranova · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  13. Chilling Effects clone for search removals? by timrod · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  14. Re: Not Voluntarily by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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."

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  15. I have to wonder by aitikin · · Score: 4, Informative

    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...

    --
    "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
  16. Re: Not Voluntarily by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We can call it the Ministry of Truth

  17. Stan O'Neal, you will not be forgotten by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  18. Re:wait by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.