Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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...
"Governments, corporations, and religious ideologies destroy the right to self preservation, to think for oneself, to make your own choices in life, basically destroys individuality."
You missed one. I fixed it for you. Corporations are also about centralized command and control and have a rigid power hierarchy that benefits the few and devalues human beings.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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!
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+
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
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.
I bet this is misreported and what they demand is that all searches originating from France be censored, regardless of whether a Frenchman goes to google.fr or google.com -- this easy Google to implement. This does not affect anyone outside of France.
" France Claims Right To Censor Search Results Globally " -- rubbish
" France Claims Right To Censor Search Results Locally " -- corrected
Also, even if true, US-Americans are not really allowed to cry about it because "US Claims Right To Wiretap Globally".
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
The Sherman Anti-Trust act wasn't just created on a whim. If you actively avoid treating corporations with the same skepticism that is popular for governments, then they WILL devolve into monopolies.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Correct, that is exactly what it is. They are simply saying that Google should obey French law when serving French citizens, which isn't particularly unreasonable considering how much effort Google themselves put in to geofencing French users. For example, French users can't get in to the US Play store or install apps that have been set to "only available in the US". More over, Google serves google.com to European users from servers located in the EU anyway.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Annd corporations are WHY you have a 401K, instead of a pension plan or a proper social system. It's all about their profits, always, if you mattered you'd be a CEO.
From the NYT
The authorities want the ruling to apply to all of Google’s domains, including Google.com, although the company contends that Europe’s privacy legislation should apply only to regional domains like Google.de in Germany.
In effect they want it removed World Wide, if it's "all of Google's domains".
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I find it very interesting that you are siding with France on this when on Microsoft you had precisely the opposite stance. There the USA was demanding that Microsoft's USA employees follow USA law and in that case your feeling was the the EU / Ireland had an obligation to be involved and regulate because of where the servers were physically located regardless of the status of the data.
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!
It's really simple. It's down to where the company is based.
Google has a subsidiary in France. That subsidiary is responsible for handling the French version of Google services, like search and the Play store. Even google.com is served from within France for performance reasons, and it gives location based results using language settings and geolocation of IP addresses. Google France needs to comply with French laws, including the version of google.com it serves up.
Microsoft's subsidiary is based in Ireland. It needs to comply with Irish law. US law enforcement doesn't have jurisdiction over it. Just like French courts don't have jurisdiction over Google's US operation.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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."