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Google Rejects 58% of "Right To Be Forgotten" Requests
gurps_npc writes CNN Money has a short, interesting piece on the results of Google implementing Europe's "Right to be Forgotten." They are denying most requests, particularly those made by convicted criminals, but are honoring the requests to remove salacious information — such as when a rape victim requested the article mentioning her by name be removed from searches for her name. "In evaluating a request, we will look at whether the results include outdated or inaccurate information about the person," Google said. "We'll also weigh whether or not there's a public interest in the information remaining in our search results -- for example, if it relates to financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions or your public conduct as a government official."
Ignoring public officials, that seems a very American view on how to treat criminals.
If someone is caught for a petty crime 15 years ago, should it be returned against a search history now if they have never committed another offence?
The law as it stands in most of Europe doesn't delete the record of such a crime having happened, but does hide that information to encourage offenders to rehabilitate and become a non-criminal and regular member of society. Without the prospect of ever being able to live normally once an indiscretion has occurred, what would motivate an offender to stop offending? There's a sweet spot between the first crime and the third petty crime in which you could deter someone from that life of crime, but after that point and after a jail sentence you are unlikely to reform that person. But without the option of rehabilitation you are unlikely to reform *any* offender.
This would also allow nation states to use the increasing threat of police intrusion as a deterrence and counter-opposition tool. Any arrest and any record that can be made to stick would reverberate forwards in time affecting that person in numerous ways... if petty offences cannot be forgotton or moved on from.
Once you accept that for some petty crimes (i.e. drunk and disorderly on a stag do that got out of hand, or something equally likely that it could entrap almost anyone) the search engine should reflect the sensible law that states this should be forgotten by almost everyone (not those in certain positions)... then where is the line drawn?
At one extreme murderers should not be forgotten, nor convicted rapists... but at the other end speeding offences, drunk and disorderly, shoplifting, those shouldn't upend a life. Somewhere between those points is the fuzzy line where stuff on one side should be forgotten, other stuff remembered.
Before this ruling Google ignored that line and treated everyone to the joy of living forever with the consequences of their actions without ever being able to make good. After this ruling, Google are forced to apply some basis for allowing some people to move on.
Then of course... where to start with public officials. Those who wish the world to be a better place and work towards it don't deserve a lack of privacy. They certainly need to be transparent in their roles and to sustain trust in their position, but these are different things. A fuzzy line appears once more, intrusions on the identity of the children of a public official is too much, they never voluntarily agreed to give up a level of privacy, and yet no questioning of the financial situation of an official is too little as their trust should be earned and not presumed.
In both cases, either extreme (no privacy nor right to be forgotten, full privacy and past deleted) is clearly wrong.
"The law" tends to have attributes about what is valid that require some subjective assessment. Nominally these are ironed out through extremely legalistic language, and court precedents. In practice, it frequently includes those the law applies to making judgements.
Theft laws, for example, don't preclude my occasional unsolicited handling of your property within the bounds of common sense, like, say, me bringing you your umbrella you left behind by accident.
In the original case that triggered the "right to be forgotten" ruling, the person did do just that. The argument from the newspaper involved was that a record of fact would not be edited.
The person did not dispute that the fact occurred, merely that by it being published at the top of the search engine placement it's effect had not diminished with time and was still being felt by the person as other third parties took the information to be current and used it against them.
The people affected by this don't seem to be objecting to the past (and historical record existing), but only it's impact on the present.
In Sweden, for example, all tax records are a matter of public record. If you were Swedish I could go through the process of looking up your data. But that process isn't automated to the point that the knowledge of that data could be used against you by everyone... it would take some effort on my part, and some right (I understand only Swedish citizens can ask for the data) to access it.
What the "right to be forgotten" does is attempt to balance access to the historical record such that the access does not unduly cause harm to individuals, whilst at the same time attempting to keep public information about certain acts that shouldn't be forgotten.
As I argue above, it is not as if everything should be hidden, but nor that nothing should. There is a fuzzy line but in the past those who provided access to such information did too good a job of that to the detriment of the people. Given that Google reject 58% of requests, they are probably now getting it more right than wrong.
"But in Switzerland, a finance professional who asked Google to remove more than 10 links on his arrest and conviction for financial crimes had his request denied."
Would such a request not already be denied just because Switzerland is not in the European Union?
And by the way, most of the comments here seem to be unhappy about the fact that Google is making these decisions. Guess what, Google doesn't want this either. They fought this tooth and nail up to the highest European Court, but the court decided to force them to remove requests under certain (but not clearly defined) circumstances. Read more here (I haven't reviewed the article so can't vouch for accuracy though): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
The data protection laws say, in summary, that companies who process peoples' personal information are responsible for keeping that information accurate and up-to-date, and to discard that information when it is no longer relevant.
The court ruling decided that search results on a person's name constituted personal information about that person. Hence search engine indexes are subject to the fore-mentioned laws.