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France Claims Right To Censor Search Results Globally
Lauren Weinstein writes: I've been waiting for this, much the way one waits for a violent case of food poisoning. France is now officially demanding that Google expand the hideous EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' (RTBF) to Google.com worldwide, instead of just applying it to the appropriate localized (e.g. France) version of Google. And here's my official response as a concerned individual:
To hell with this ... Weinstein's page links to the paywalled WSJ coverage; you might prefer The New York Times or Politico. Related: a court in Canada, according to TechDirt, would like to do something similar, when it comes to expanding its effect on Google results for everyone, not just those who happen to live within its jurisdiction.
To hell with this ... Weinstein's page links to the paywalled WSJ coverage; you might prefer The New York Times or Politico. Related: a court in Canada, according to TechDirt, would like to do something similar, when it comes to expanding its effect on Google results for everyone, not just those who happen to live within its jurisdiction.
You'll have to pry it from the NSA's cold dead fingers.
France finally decided to get rid of Google with "Right to be forgotten" in France. (If you can't comply with part of a rule, why comply with any of it.)
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Governments and religious ideologies destroy the right to self preservation, to think for oneself, to make your own choices in life, basically destroys individuality. Not only that, but it literally enslaves and destroys human lives just look at the amount of genocides caused by governments around the world. #1 rule in life? Don't trust anyone. Censorship is just another way to keep the sheeple in control.
France is now officially demanding that Google expand the hideous EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' (RTBF) to Google.com worldwide, ...
Hideous? Speak for yourself.
Remember the Duke LaCrosse player scandal years ago? To make a long story short, on 60 Minutes one of he geezers yasked the parents why they were fighting so hard to clear all the charges and not cut a deal.
One responded, "The Internet." They didn't want their kids coming up on Google searches over false charges. And they were false. The prosecutor got fired and disbarred..
And considering how employers these days demand to know every little dipshit thing about you, and considering how the smallest thing can be blown out of proportion (people ALWAYS assume the worst), you bet your ass I want this. And Google, Bing and every other advertising/search company can STFU.
At what point is it more economical for Google to simply stop providing a service to France and lose some advertising revenue rather than enduring the expense and risk of following local laws?
...and route around it?
Since the US claims the right to enforce its won stupid fucking laws globally, stop whining when other countries want to enforce their own stupid fucking rules globally...
You demand something when you are in position to retaliate if your demand is not met. Otherwise you just look pathetic and ridiculous. France is in no such a position. Therefore France is making itself look pathetic and ridiculous.
Based on more than just this news story: I've been thinking lately that we're just too young of a race yet for the the world to have become as small as it is, and what's worse is the world is getting smaller all the time. The world's shrinkage started with things like the ability to communicate almost instantaneously over long distances (telephone, radio) and later the ability to physically get from almost any point on the planet to any other relatively quickly. These things began to make national borders less and less relevant, and the advent of the Internet has just made that effect more highly pronounced. The problem is essentially the same as with any other technology we've developed: it's evolving orders of magnitude more quickly than humans themselves are evolving, physically and socio-politically. We (humans) are not anywhere near ready to live in a world without borders (look at how we treat each other still!) but the Internet especially is working to erase all borders. Meanwhile, as we're not anywhere near ready for that, one nation or another is always jockeying for the ability to claim the Internet as it's national property, and thus control over Internet policy. Then there's organizations like the United Nations, which would like nothing better than to have ultimate control over the Internet itself -- because, I believe, they think that being able to control the Internet would, ultimately, be a path towards having control over all nations. Which brings me to this point: Will there, eventually, have to be one global governing body? In my opinion, yes, that's going to have to happen one day, as the world is continuing to shrink -- but as previously posited, the human race is not anywhere near the point in it's evolution where that's going to happen. Trying to force it would probably start the War to End All Wars.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Time for Google to forget France. Businesses, Tourist attractions, Music and Movies - forget it all!
to demand France suck my dick every morning. Somehow I doubt that's going to happen either.
Words and phrases like 'hideous', 'food poisoning', and 'to hell with this'. The article needs to be withdrawn, edited, and resubmitted. Otherwise I can't take it seriously. Highly unprofessional.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Can Google tell this laid-back farming country of France to get fucked? I mean, "s'il vous plait les fromages qui puent," just stop using Google, Apple, Microsoft, hell, stop using anything made by an American company and let us see what happens to your country.
So if any one country arbitrarily gives itself the right to globally police the internet, decide what should be allowed, prosecute (according to it's national laws) content it deems unlawful, and punish people - even people in other countries - for things that happen on it, then every other country cannot be denied.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Government has no right to censor, nor do you, through them, or through a democratic vote. Numbers do not make right.
Politicians pandering to you, to lead you on crusades of outraged censorship, is just another form of those in power using censorship to maintain their power.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Release a statement to all prominent french news outlets:
Citizens of France
Due to unreasonable demands of your governing bodies detailed at www.google.com/FrenchWithdrawl, Google will be withdrawing from the French market in 30 days. This includes all Google services - GMail, Google search, Youtube, Zagat, maps, flight information, Android, and others listed at www.google.com/FrenchWithdrawl. We feel we must protect the rights of the other 97% of our customers that live outside of France.
You have 30 days to download all of your data using the "Download" button at www.google.com/FrenchWithdrawl. On the 31st day, no service will be provided to anyone within France for a minimum for 6 months. Also, no services regarding France will be provided for people based out of France - no maps, no search, no Youtube, none of the services listed at www.google.com/FrenchWithdrawl.
One final note from outside the PR department: Don't bother with VPN, proxy, Tor, or any other half-baked obfuscation schemes because we'll know. Why? Because we're Google.
Love,
Google.
Threaten to grind their social and work lives to a halt in 30 days and effectively wipe them off the face of the internet for everyone but China (use Baidu) and Russia (use Yandex) and they'll think twice before pulling shit like this.
Fundamentally, what France has done is a declaration of war against every non-France country in the entire world. Of course, no one really wants to bother fighting France, so instead we will ignore the declaration, and the French will ignore the ignoring and claim a hollow political/PR victory.
Everyone (in the world) needs to recognize that the existence and viewing of public information is not physically damaging and should count the internet, and the information on it, as beyond the bounds of regulation, much like the private thoughts of our brains. If someone uses the information to perform an illegal activity in your country, fine. Prosecute the illegal ACTIVITY. Information cannot be illegal in the traditional sense, any more than thoughts can.
The most you can hope for is that it is not hidden.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I think it depends on precisely what they're asking for here. To me the TLD accessed is a red herring by Google, if the EU wants the filter to apply to its citizens its not unreasonable it would apply to all of Google's domains. Though that should not mean the filter would apply to folks outside the EU accessing those domains.
This is also the pot calling the kettle black. The USA frequently attempts to govern outside its national boundaries, see the recent FIFA investigation as a recent example.
They do not owe anything to the world govt
France will blink.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Is your meaning of a "concerned individual" meant sarcastically!? Myself, I think the right to be globally forgotten is a welcome feature, and I'm a concerned citizen.
'nuff said
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Sacrebleu. I just chocked on my croissant. So damn buttery and flakey.
Bon dieu, try a pain au chocolat instead. Much better than a croissant.
It's corporate censorship. Google can opt out of doing business in France. Or China. Or the U.S. Or it can comply. It will comply.
This is why we can't let corporations run the world. They're in it for money, not principle or human rights or whatever. They don't have ideals... they are like sociopaths that are in it for themselves. That's not to say that they're not useful, but they shouldn't be in charge of politics.
Hate to say it, but this problem isn't going to go away. The internet will have to become regulated, with various strictures applied according under a multitude of jurisdictions. It will be messy.
If you post it, they will read.
First Canada and now France. Sounds like the French are clueless. But you go ahead Frenchy, now I KNOW I will NEVER visit Canada or France. They are not a center for culture, they are the center of stupidity! What the hell, are you French inbreeding? Because that's the kind of thinking I'd expect from an inbred.
Google (and Baidu) is learning to recognize letters, numbers, images, faces, the spoken word, more complex things every day, not unlike a baby. Eventually, Google will recognize our internet of things (with exploits), including everyone's phone, and medical implants, and DARPA's robot progeny. Maybe a human, perhaps one of the AI experts recently hired by Google, will be at the helm, maybe not, that just changes who has total control. If Google (or Baidu) wants to grow (it's that or be conquered by that which does), it'll need more resources. What will the top AI (or its operator, if it has one) want to do with everything else and everybody else? Render them nonthreatening first, then use them.
This "Right" was never that. You do not have the right to be forgotten by me if we pass on the street...
So why is this different? If someone with a 100% recall memory were to meet you have have a 1 hour conversation, they would be able to know as much or more about you than google. So why is the ability to be forgotten even relevant to the global discussion? Its not now, nor was it EVER, even possible. You cannot effect the memory of another. Google is just a PERFECT TOTAL RECALL "Other"... DEAL WITH IT! (Aka, don't do stupid shit that gets posted to the internet...)
This is just one of the thousand cuts that will in 5-10 years have killed the global internet.
Slowly it will be split in dozens (or more) local internets as local laws and security measures cut it up.
The same development might also spell the end of the globe spanning multinational corporation, at least in IT related fields.
One curious effect is that IP4 addresses will again be plentiful, as US allocated A and B series can be reuesd in other internets...
To the poster: There are general principles built into most bodies of law related to rehabilitation whereby criminal histories are expunged after a period of time. Likewise, statutes of limitations proscribe a time window after a lesser crime is conducted in which law enforcement must bring charges or else lose the right.
The above ideas together are the brick and mortar of a civilized society whereby we are forgiven for our minor misdeeds and our law enforcement is not able to pick on people they don't like by sifting through their past to dig up j-walking incidents.
Would you do away with these universal and beneficial legal ideas? If not then i suggest the actual correct and moral action is to extend them out into the world, including the internet. If a teenager does something stupid (lets face it we all did at one time) then it is not right or moral for them to be punished by disadvantage in life and job for the rest of their life. This would ammount to a return to feudal caste systems, and you just aren't looking at it correctly if you don't see this simple truth. The internet should not be immune to moral principles and ideas of rehabilitation and justice.
To say otherwise, you just sound like a shill of the tech companies who would be inconvenienced by such things in their quest for ever higher profit margins.
Just remove the NAME's and leave the results.
eg, if I search "Obama is a doodoo head" it should return no hits for pages calling Obama anything negative in the context of hate. Searching for "people who are doodoo head's" should still return the page.
Not that the topic has any, but the only link is to a poorly written blog you simply copied the first few lines out of, with the only link going to a paywalled WSJ article.
If that's what's necessary for a front page on /., I could offer an article on a miracle breakthrough in the cure on Asperger. Just gimme an hour to make it up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... news at 11 :)
Look at it from their PoV: the French have a law, and their civil-code attitude to the law is to enforce on principle, not to the letter as English common law. Loophole closing rather than toleration (which might be applied wholesale to certain violators.)
Some well-intentioned person probably argued against RTBF by pointing out that VPN bypasses geolocation. So the Prosecutors were informed and instead of abandoning an impractical (if not stupid) law, they figured out how to close the loophole.
Les procureurs [correctly] figured they could not stop VPNs, but Google was there for the muscling. Like all impractical laws, even worse measures are required for enforcement (eg.drugs).
It will be interesting to watch. The French and EU courts could go either way. At one extreme it is an act of war (blockade) and the other Google leaves France. Most likely a deal for a hidden something France wants.
Whenever Google removes links due to DMCA notices, they post the requests that include the DMCA notices (and the links).
Post a notice saying a persons's name was forcibly removed. Then some third-party website called no-right-to-be-forgotten.org keeps wiki/database of who the people making this request are. Said website will be located in some country that can't be sued.
There is a reason they don't speak German.
Now you're telling me France is considering Arabic as the national language because of belief in outlawing firearms will protect your citizens when they do exercise their feedom of speech?
It will be a lot easier to just forget France.
Why did that get modded to -1???
That's fine and the best way to do that is to block french IPs from being able to use google. Problem solved!
Seems like they are singling out one search engine to be treated differently than others. Hard for me to see how that is fair. Just because Google has been successful, is no reason that the law should not be applied evenly. I guess that is how Europe "thinks."
This all about where result which care censored in France on google.fr are not on google.com/ncr or similar when requested to france. The government is just telling google "well we nice try google. Now censor all request coming from France as per law". Whether you like it or not certain local law have to be respected, and intentionally allowing a bypass with google.com/ncr or a list of all censor web page is an intentional law bypass. If google does not like it : get the fuck out of france, and the market will correct itself either by pressuring the law to be withdrawn or by having an alternative which pay respect to the law. If you have complaint , well write the legislature, and saying "france can suck my dick" or similar very infantile remark shows you do not understand the point discussed and you should let adult making the discussion. Frankly if there was a specific law in the USA, and a provider gave an intentional way to bypass it, how quick do you think the feds would pound them ? Very VERY quick. See how for example banks which never had a business in the USA, were penalized for breaking an embargoe that their country never agreed to.
Methinks you are kinda nuts. Saudi Arabia is an independent country with independent policies on many many issues. Certainly they are an ally of the USA but not an extension of the USA.
May France fart a few Rafales in your general direction.
Bread and chocolate? I have been to France, nobody tried to feed me any of that. I think I might just be kooky enough to like it. Hmm... I bet a slightly salty bread is nice with that.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hmm... I call them a Hypocriteopotamus.
France is trying to force their law on other countries like the USA. France would be all upset if the USA were to do that. I see a hypocritopotamus in the room. France needs to back down and to realize how trivial they are. The UN needs to step in and remind France that they can only make laws within their own borders. Google needs to step in and just forget France.
Try this from France : go to google.us or google.com, and you end up redirected to Google France anyway. So they don't want you to do unlocalized searches, or perhaps you have to dig deeper and learn syntax or go into "advanced research".
On duckduckgo they seem to have anticipated I wanted to do that and there's simply a clickable toggle!
How'd that whole 'Master Race' thing work out for Europe last time? I think I recall something about Americans paying to keep you safe - and they have been doing (or trying to) so ever since (for better or worse). I realize you were trolling but, come on, you can do better. That does not even rile anyone up.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
That they were processing through US banks on US soil...
How convenient that you skipped that part. I will assume you were not aware of it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
OK so i start a site that does searches from within the US and then create a file and send it to a French national. In other words the notion will not work at all and the legal issues will never cease and new businesses will appear to deliver that information to the French. We actually need to make it clear that only US laws are in play for anyone operating in the US.. Think of it as the porno in Podunk problem. A guy in NY send porn to a guy in California but because the message travels through Podunk Podunk claims a right to legal judgement over whether it is "too" graphic. By doing that they push free speech into the trash can and insist that the most radical conservative backwater, hick town can control materials being sent across the nation. Who owns jurisdiction?
They are simply saying that Google should obey French law when serving French citizens,
That is not what it sounds like to me:
"For Google, the answer is worldwide," said Ms. Falque-Pierrotin, when questioned late last year about the scope of the European privacy ruling. "If people have the right to be delisted from search results, then that should happen worldwide."
How many times does it need to be said? Don't need them for wine, fries and their cars suck.
Fuck
The
French
Just shows the state of the US when they hate human liberty unless its by the gun.
France does NOT own the net.
USA does NOT own the net.
Austrailia does NOT own the net.
repeat until The internet is chaos/anarchy.
harden your equipment & software and do un to others as you would have them do to you.
develop understanding for others with differences and do NOT pick fights.
If you can't behave yourself and ignore or avoid stuff that upsets you,
STAY OFF THE NET !
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
The law in question is natural response of a human society to "algorithmic mind of google". The sick notion that algorithms can make decisions for and about us is compounded by complete lack of avenues for challenging those decisions. It's the google way.
The time has come when it's necessary to legislate and put a socially acceptable framework in place. Google needs to be told "NO". There is nothing "hideous" about this law. It is necessary and be prepared for more.
The US justice system routinely tries to impose its laws beyond its jurisdiction. And even though its been rebuffed every time, it tries and tries and tries. US law --when its not in the US, and where there is no international law, and where there is no treaty with the country in which the event happened-- does not apply. (FULL STOP). And they try and try and try. Now France is trying to do it. And sadly, Canada. No. Your laws only apply to your country. You have overstepped your boundaries. Your cage is smaller than your ego or imagination. It won't happen. You can run naked in your own back yard. Your neighbor doesn't want to see it though. If you flaunt your unsightly wares elsewhere, your neighbor will either put up a fight, or a fence, or use a BB gun to force you to cover up. The point is: its rude, unsightly, and people will laugh, make fun of you, and if it comes down to it, send the dog in to bite off whatever it can.
There is a simple solution for this mess. Mandate that any international corporation MUST provide a country-TLD version of their website, and the .com for any jurisdiction outside the US redirects you to the appropriate country TLD version based on your geo-location data.
The country-specific domain has to abide by the rules and legislation of the jurisdiction you are in.
And any and all VPNs are to be automatically and completely blocked by corporate websites for their entire IP range from accessing *any* of the domains.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Except the USA gets "allowed" to do so because it's got an army bigger than the next five biggest put together, and have shown they will use it in "police actions" without stint.
indeed the only country that is being honest here is China, ironically.
a) they don't PRETEND to care about freedom.
b) they are open about their censorship of the entire internet AND THE REASONS FOR IT. Not "For the sake of the children!". Politics. Control.
c) they only bother doing it WITHIN CHINA ITSELF. they couldn't give a rats ass what you say about them in any other country in the world.
About the only place where they impose on world politics is in their insistence of their borders being where they say they are. Whilst some countries want to redefine their borders for them and give sovereignty to a country that never got it. yes, that country *deserves* soverignty. They don't validly have it. But here, again, they're less of a dick than the USA, who define THEIR territorial waters as being 200 miles away from their coast. Of course YOU can't do that, you're not Gods' Special Country(tm). Or define their borders 100 miles inside. Or define any plane going into their border area (where their laws, well, the *constitution*, anyway, don't apply, because it's not the USA) is in their jurisdiction (where their laws, but not their constitution, applies).
So, really, I don't care here.
France won't get it, but they certainly have every single right to demand it. There's plenty of precedent from the USA that they can and should get it. And if they are refused for reason, those reasons need to be applied to the USA too, otherwise they're not reasons, they're excuses.
I know this is very out of place, but I strongly suspect the seeds have already been sown for World War 3 with this "Right to be Forgotten". The United States (and whoever wants to join us) vs. the rest of the world.
There will be no WW3 while the USA has more than half the military power around here. Any opposition, even if they allied with every other country couldn't have a good chance if winning. Also nuclear weapons mean mutual destruction.
Come on France. You were once proud. Viva la France? Not so much now socialists have castrated you. Now you belong to the ages. You're not dead yet, you're well on your way unless you do something about it.
Yes, the United States has clearly demonstrated its "military superiority" in the Middle East. I simply don't buy the argument that more nukes means superior.
The Google "Google" on Egyptian Google mishap was fixed in no time. But that was costing them money, so no wonder.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
You're a dumbass. The only reason the US has had problems in the Middle East is that they're fighting unmarked opponents and trying to minimize civilian casualties. If the US went to a total war footing, like it did in WWII, things would be a lot different.