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Wikipedia Reports 50 Links From Google 'Forgotten', Issues Transparency Report

Posted by Unknown on from the down-the-memory-hole dept.

netbuzz (955038) writes The Wikimedia Foundation this morning reports that 50 links to Wikipedia from Google have been removed under Europe's "right to be forgotten" regulations, including a page about a notorious Irish bank robber and another about an Italian criminal gang. "We only know about these removals because the involved search engine company chose to send notices to the Wikimedia Foundation. Search engines have no legal obligation to send such notices. Indeed, their ability to continue to do so may be in jeopardy. Since search engines are not required to provide affected sites with notice, other search engines may have removed additional links from their results without our knowledge. This lack of transparent policies and procedures is only one of the many flaws in the European decision." Wikimedia now has a page listing all notifications that search listing were removed. itwbennett also wrote in with Wikimedia news this morning: the Wikimedia foundation published its first ever transparency report, detailing requests to remove or alter content (zero granted, ever) and content removed for copyright violations.

5 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Quick slashdot editors! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Time to get beta forgotten!

  2. As a European... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a European (Greek) i must beg our American (USA) brothers and sisters to defend their/our "right to remember"...

    1. Re:As a European... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've gotta say, I didn't see rampant abuse of the law coming so fast.

      Really? Because pretty much as soon as it happened this is what most of us expected.

      The people who want to do this probably started the process the next day.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Kudos by RobertM1968 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bravo to Google and Wikipedia for trying to be transparent about this. The law used seems absurd, and is open for much abuse (think politics, for one).

    --
    StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
  4. About to be deleted by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 5, Funny

    The funny thing is, both en pages were about to be deleted for lack of notoriety. Now will the all the media coverage, they have suddenly become notable, and my bet is both articles will be retained. Streisand effect at it's finest.