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Google Rejects French Order For 'Right To Be Forgotten'
Last month, French data protection agency CNIL ordered Google to comply with the European "right to be forgotten" order by delisting certain search results not just on the European versions of Google's search engine, but on all versions. Google has now publicly rejected that demand. CNIL has promised a response, and it's likely the case will go before local courts. Google says,
This is a troubling development that risks serious chilling effects on the web. While the right to be forgotten may now be the law in Europe, it is not the law globally. Moreover, there are innumerable examples around the world where content that is declared illegal under the laws of one country, would be deemed legal in others: Thailand criminalizes some speech that is critical of its King, Turkey criminalizes some speech that is critical of Ataturk, and Russia outlaws some speech that is deemed to be "gay propaganda." If the CNIL's proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world's least free place.
never be falsely be accused of rape.
So, learn Mandarin then?
Once upon a time, when most of us lived in smallish villages, ALL your neighbors knew your business - the only way to have anonymity was to leave town, which was difficult and dangerous. Now everyone's village spans the globe, and leaving is even more difficult and dangerous. I value anonymity, which I maintain by seeming as average as possible.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
"Right to be forgotten" is just a cover-up tool used by elites to wipe their messes off then net. Censorship is censorship, whatever euphemism you invent to rationalize it. Just another terrible idea that I hope stays isolated to Europe.
Google already has no presence China (and arguably for noble reasons -- they didn't feel like giving up lists of dissidents).
I wonder if the same thing will happen in France, if not the entire EU. They can shut down Google's presence there and jail all employees, but the data can be replicated offshore, making all the right to be forgotten laws a moot point.
Wonder who will win. Ultimately, can Google lose the EU for a market as they did China?
So. Time to learn Mandarin?
Its not unreasonable to expect Google to do the delisting on all TLDs when accessed in Europe.
It would actually be less free than the least free place. That is because different countries are less free than others in different ways. For example, a-cup ban in Australia + face-sitting ban in the UK.
>> While (X) may be the law in (place), it is not the law globally (therefore pound sand)
Wow. And techies thought Microsoft was arrogant when dealing with Europe in the 2000s.
More to the point: how do I get to be a multinational corporation so I can tell local authorities to fuck off too?
"In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world's least free place."
No, it would be even less free than that. It would be the intersection of the freedoms in all places, which is a subset of the freedoms in the least free place.
With all due respect, I think that the last paragraph could be fixed like this: " In the end, the Internet would be less free than the world's least free place."
because all the restrictions adds up.
Sorry my english isn't soo good anyway.
If a Scotsman commits rape in France, he may be tried in England.
The main problem is that laws which protect Google's property - especially IP - are global, mostly thanks to international treaties. I would like to see countries where this is not so, and would be keen to find out how Google would feel about that :-).
the internet is like the open ocean or space.
the internet is not in a country, it is it's own country.
radio/tv crosses the borders without a passport.
when the internet users are online they are citizens of the world.
let the countries block google.
users will go around the blockage.
then the voters/users can get the idiots thrown out of office.
the internet is NOT mob rule.
if you do NOT "like" my post, it won't hurt my feelings or cause me to lose sleep.
and if it makes you think and form your own opinion, wonderful
the internet average IQ has been on the decline since the general public was allowed on it.
but the average government official IQ has remained at it's original low level on a steady diet of gray paint chips.
parrots talk
look, listen,think and be free
arrgh, me wants a cracker ! :)
False accusations suck, but that's not even it's primary use. But it would be naive to not consider the ramifications beyond. It could mean that search results for Tienanmen Square or Falun Gong could be missing world wide because Chinese law bans results for those pages in their jurisdiction. Every country wants their laws to apply to everyone else, but doesn't think of the consequences then of having to apply everyone else's laws to themselves.
Even more so, seems silly that the remedy to a false accusation is to delist a page from a search result. Seems that libel statues would apply that you should direct at the content publisher not the search engine.
The world will be a much scarier place if we don't have freedom of speech because some people could tell lies.
Look at their losses in WW1 before complaining about their behaviour in WW2.
I don't know what U.S. casualty figures have looked like in the various wars but I doubt they ever reached the 60% France suffered. Then they were supposed to do it all over again because their leaders had been asleep at the wheel. No.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
I thought the whole idea behind the 'right to be forgotten' was that google would 'forget' who you were. If they only forget you in the EU(search results come up as 0), but still have all the data on you (serach indexes, etc) then you haven't been forgotten have you?
I think that's what France is trying to point out here.
"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security" --Benjamin Franklin
Google already censors the web according to US laws and preferences. They're constantly taking down links to child pornography. They take down links to copyrighted content. They're even taking down links to revenge porn now. This isn't a principled stand. Google doesn't want to comply with the European law.
I played baseball as a kid and I made the local paper a few times in my youth. My local library can get, pretty much, a copy of any newspaper that's ever been printed and archived.
I assume other countries like France have similar archives. Would this "right to be forgotten" also apply to paper archives? What about public records such as financial transactions?
It seems irresponsible of us to deprive future generations of these potential historical records.
Those leaders sought to be elected as leaders, then failed to meet their responsibilities. Nobody forced them to run for office.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Everything everyone does is part of history. The "right to be forgotten" is just the 1984 memory hole with a friendly face. It starts with misunderstandings and people saying "they were a kid when they did that" and ends with inconvenient facts about what people did before their "views evolved" being forcibly erased for the convenience of the one wanting their past hidden.
"The French elected those leaders. They should be punished for their incompetence."
If every populace were to be punished for the incompetence of their leaders, who would be left alive?
Not showing up in Google does not remove it from the Internet. Make requests to the hosting site for removal. Then it won't show up in any search engine.
Privacy = Censorship
I love when Slashdot ideals conflict. Big brother already won !
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Actions you committed under whatever name you currently used at that time (if in the real world, real name) should be accessible, if crawled or backed up. There is no "forced forgetfulness" in the real world: if you walk a street drunk and naked, you can't force bypassers to forgot your sorry face. Forced erasure of fairly recorded content in the name of "fair image" is just censorship in disguise.
No one in Texas, for sure.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If every populace were to be punished for the incompetence of their leaders, who would be left alive?
The competent voters.
it is a feel-good, empty band aid law for technologically illiterate people
1. you can easily circumvent it by accessing google with a vpn in another country, which is second nature for anyone vaguely aware. if that employer or possible date looks you up, it takes 15 seconds more effort. they will do it. they won't blindly accept and abide by the censorial coddling of the EU like good little citizens
2. any employer or date who will disregard you for stupid shit you did as a teenager is no one you want to date/ work for anyway. furthermore, those employers/ dates actually do have a right to know your sordid background if you are hiding actual real evil shit you once did
but the real problem is the philosophical concept behind the law
there is no such thing as a "right to be forgotten." this is not "information wants to be free dude" half bakes philosophical sophistry. this is the basic concept of reality that you can't control information. once it gets out there, it's out there, no take backs. so be careful who you tell your private shit. even if someone betrays your confidence, or records you without your authorization, you don't get to magically erase public information. what you do is sue or prosecute the person who wronged you
allegory:
if i push you out a window, you should have me arrested and jailed for assault. but what you can't do is go "pushing me out a window was wrong, so magically i want it to be like i never got pushed out a window and my leg broke" (*POOF* leg magically heals). reality does not work that way. and that's the same idiocy behind "right to be forgotten" magic unicorn wipe public information law
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Where are the other search engines, and why aren't they subjected to the same laws and stuff?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
What you post on the internet, is on the internet. Period. Nothing you can do about it. When someone else posts a private pic of you on the internet, bad luck, no way to remove it. Go sue the person for damages.
I'm in Europe. "Europe" does not have a law that gives you the right to be not on Google. Some countries in Europe have, like the French. Soon, the French will have a law that says the internet can only be in French.
no, I don't have a sig
Join the French Foreign Legion.
Have gnu, will travel.
And the voters should be punished for their failure to vote leaders that met their responsibilities.
So what are the other search providers doing? Complying with French law or ignoring it? Believe it or not, Google is not the only search provider on the Internet. If others are complying, are they wrong to do so? Or are they right?
Correction: The Internet would only be as free as the intersection of all least free places. Anything that is forbidden anywhere would be forbidden everywhere.
I bet Walter Palmer would like to be forgotten...
Each country can have its own search engine
It is a worry that there is a fight between a company and the people of several countries and that it is even contemplated that the company and not the people, has some rights.
If companies have no rights there is no reason for them to exist at all. Since companies are almost entirely responsible for the economic well being of the world, you should seriously consider the practicality of your position. Just because some country comes up with some loony irrational law doesn't mean that the rest of us living in other countries should have to live with it. Should I have to respect the Chinese government's position on Tienanmen Square when I live in the US? Because that is EXACTLY what you are arguing for.
In this instance Google is right. There is no way they could respect ridiculous laws like this one globally. If the people of France are uncomfortable with that then that is their problem and they have no right to make it the problem of the rest of the world.
If it is between the people and anybody else, some countries even pretend to talk about "We, the people ..." and they should ALWAYS be priority number one. If it is inconvinient for a company, fuck that.
Those very same people work in the companies you are so quick to dismiss. Companies are nothing more than a collection of people working together. So because people work in a company their rights no longer matter? Thank goodness you aren't in charge of anything if that is what you really think.
European states and the EU have backward ideas that are unworkable in modern world. Worse, they wouldn't stand for a truly powerful state, like the US or China, determining their laws for them. Do French media companies ban discussion of the Tiananmen protests in 1989? Do they abide by the laws of other states, say like prohibitions against blasphemy and apostasy? This could almost work if France and Europe would agree to abide by the laws of other assholes, but they don't. They want to force their ways on others. I wouldn't expect more from filthy failed imperialists.
Hey, put a little dome over Austin before you nuke the rest, okay?
Wow. And techies thought Microsoft was arrogant when dealing with Europe in the 2000s.
The arrogance is entirely on the part of the French government. Google is right. Google cannot possible afford to let each country dictate their business practices (and by extension my use of their services) globally. The French government is making an unreasonable demand to have their particular viewpoint be enforced worldwide by Google. Google is 100% right in telling them to fuck off. That may cost them business in France but if they actually did what France asked they would be effectively unable to function outside of a single country.
That's why, when I (soon!) become a genocidal conqueror, I will be asking people for their voting records before I line them up against the wall.
Curses! WTF is this "secret ballot" my advisors are bringing up? *sigh* There goes my invasion plan. (If I can't have the executions, then I don't see why to bother.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I thought the whole idea behind the 'right to be forgotten' was that google would 'forget' who you were. If they only forget you in the EU(search results come up as 0), but still have all the data on you (serach indexes, etc) then you haven't been forgotten have you?
I think that's what France is trying to point out here.
And what France is missing is that their precious "right to be forgotten" is ridiculous and unenforceable. It's effectively an attempt to export censorship. No private sector company could reasonably follow that silly law without entirely gutting their business in the process. France has NO right to prevent me from searching for data here in the US just like I don't really think China should have the right to censor what I read outside of their country. They are trying to put toothpaste back in the tube with stupid laws that make no sense which nobody can reasonably follow or execute.
"In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world's least free place."
Less free. The internet would only be as free as the union of of the most restrictive policies across jurisdictions. This would be at least as restrictive as the most restrictive individual jurisdiction, probably more.
I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
This ends up with the Internet being challenged by the least free nation ON ANY GIVEN SITUATION to restrict data or access based on that nation's restrictions.
And that would force less restrictive nations to comply.
Or not.
I vote not. Let nations that cannot tolerate the freedom of others to deal with the problem at their borders.
And leave the rest alone.
This is worth fighting for.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
EU must protect its citizens, The great firewall of EU will now be implemented :)
yayyy
Google filters their search results for the Chinese govt.
google.cn search for tiananmen gives this rosy picture:
https://www.google.com.hk/search?q=%E5%A4%A9%E5%AE%89%E9%96%80%E5%BB%A3%E5%A0%B4&safe=strict&hl=zh-CN&biw=1476&bih=909&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAmoVChMIgYaz2-SFxwIVQZeICh0fiANp
The French have never been too smart about building useless fortifications designed to keep stuff out.
Uber and the lawlessness of 'sharing economy' corporates
I think these are some scary developments. Google is declaring itself a law unto itself. While it might be able to point to some unjust laws in some countries, for it to just declare itself above the law countries like France enact to protect its citizens is scary.
Has Google declared itself the supreme justicar of the Internet?
Actually, peoples being punished for the stupidity of their leaders (leaders that never had to face an election, no less) was the reason why WW2 happened...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course you have a right to be forgotten. We'll start with your politicians.
entering "Francois Hollande" into google...
searching ...
no results for your request. Did you mean "french hollandaise"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, France wants their dumb "Right to be forgotten" rule to be applied world-wide. OK, but what happens when Iran wants any references to the Holocaust to be deleted from search results because some Iranian court rules that the Holocaust never happened and is all just a Zionist hoax? Now French citizens can't lookup information about the Holocaust. And China wants all search results about Tienanmen Square removed? The French need to learn that the internet is about open access and information. Try to restrict perfectly legal information, and you might as well shut down the internet.
I am afraid that they all are already. Not from an external source so much as natrual consequence of the actions of their leaders.
put an airtight dome over austin and leave the rest of us alone
damn wannabe californians.
i'd actually like to hear your reasoning on that.
The whole continent would be a far better place.
What no?
Oh silly me. You are saying that Google has the 'lowdown' on far too many Politicians to let that happen.
Google will be selecting what party forms the world governments in a few years.
They need neutering.
If they don't want their citizens to go to google.com (or anything other than google.fr) then they should block them...
How can they really expect to legislate what happens in other countries?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Open a history book. After WWI it was decreed that Germany would have to pay back every other country for the cost of the war. This lead to wide spread poverty in the country. Then this guy started to pick up some political clout, you might have heard of him, his name was Adolph. He ran on a platform of bringing Germany back to greatness and taking back what they deserved. Since the people were desperately poor, they agreed and put Adolphs political party in to power.
As such, the stupidity of the leaders which caused WWI to happen caused the people of Germany to be punished for those leaders sins which created the conditions for WWII to take place.
That did not lead to widespread poverty in Germany, since money was in kind of a flow. Germany would pay reparations to Britain and France, Britain and France would use that to repay their loans from the US, and the US would dump the money back into Germany in the form of investments. This would have had consequences for Germany in the long run, but in this case there was no long run. You may be thinking of the hyperinflation that wiped out people's savings, a German retaliation to the French occupation of the Ruhr area, but that didn't cause widespread poverty.
The German people gave about 40% of the vote to the National Socialists, which isn't quite the same as putting it into dictatorial power. Hitler benefited from being vastly underestimated at the time, and seized power by illegal means. The National Socialists were losing ground a little when Hitler took over.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Study the 1940 campaign sometime. The French were trashed, but it wasn't due to cowardice (except in some class "B" reserve divisions). As the campaign went on, they introduced different tactics and fought hard, although after the initial German breakthrough they were doomed. After that, there were always Frenchmen eager to fight. Feel free to criticize the Petain collaborationist regime, but it really wasn't much if any worse than most of its counterparts.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I find argument lacking in this thread. All the law say if you search within france or europe the result should be filtered. It doesn't say anything if about searching for the same thing in other countries e.g. doing a search on google.fr from japan might show results that same search from within france would be filtered.
That's how law jurisdiction works to me. The saudi king might want to get me arrested but as long as I stay in europe he will not be able to since its not illegal here & the offense was not committed within his jurisdiction, but he might force results to be filtered from within his country.
If they say they can't apply worldwide censorship because they already do when applying US law (DMCA filtering)
The U.S. regulates foreign affiliates of any banks operating in the U.S... Is this somehow different?
If we allow Google to get away with this don't we also need to let European banks do business with Iran?
How to enforce a local law on the global Internet? My first thought was for the poor judges that will have to settle on that topic. Perhaps we need a judge appreciation day.
Then I realized this problem can be easily addressed at technical level. It would not be difficult for Google to tweak google.com search results depending on user localisation. They already do this for ads.
Or they could just redirect any EU user to its national google domain, like google.fr for a french user.
Where the hell do you get your history "knowledge" from?
Where does that "US invests in Germany" story come from? The US propped its economy up for another ten years with the money flowing in from Europe and the shit hit the fan a decade belatedly, but investment certainly was not the name of the game of the time. The money was mostly used to fund the bubble that popped in 1929 because there was simply nobody abroad that could actually serve as a demand for all the junk the US pumped out (in case this sounds familiar, well, history repeats itself).
But that was not even the main reason for the rise of the national socialists. The economy crisis itself (that started pretty much right after the war in Germany and most of the rest of Europe to a lesser degree) was even a minor reason. The main reason was the feeling of unfair treatment and the thirst for revenge.
George Clemeceau was the driving force behind the "crippling" of Germany. His idea was that a Germany that cannot wage war will secure France's eastern border. So his goal for the peace between Germany and France after WW1 was to ruin Germany. On the outside, that plan is solid: A country with no money, no political power and no military power is no threat.
What he didn't take into account was that a country that you abuse to the point of breaking will resist this treatment. Especially when the general feeling is that this treatment is not deserved.
The first reason for this was the front line at the end of WW1. When you look at the front line between Germany and France, you will notice that by the time the armistice was called, the front line was actually well within the territory of France. From the point of view of a German soldier, there was no obvious reason that they lost. Hell, we won territory! We ain't the losers here! And certainly not losers that deserve to be crippled in such a way!
Well, you also should take into account that a century ago, waging war was not an "evil" thing. War was, quite literally, just politics with other means. And it was seen as such. Wars also never had that kind of dimension before. War was something where two countries fight, after a while they settle, some territory changes hands and everyone moves on. That's what wars were like 'til then. The idea that wars end governments was pretty new then. But this just as a side note.
The army still standing rather deep in enemy territory when the armistice was signed and the "unfair" treatment by the French quickly led to the Dolchstosslegende, the myth that the German army was not really beaten but that it was assassinated by a stab in the back by ... well, insert you favorite internal enemy here. Jews, socialists, old government, pick your favorite scapegoat.
Combine this now with a peace that doesn't aim at peace but at crippling the country losing the battle and you probably find out why this is a breeding ground for radical ideologies. And we learned our lesson here. Any country you try to neutralize by ruining it will do anything to shake off those shackles. No matter the cost.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What do you expect in a world everyone has rights and no one has responsibilities? The inmates run the asylum! I cannot say that any more politically correct w/o bringing the PC police on my head.
If Google is just a search index/database that is cached... laws should be against author of content/web site owner that has published the information. Use google to find these instances and then its a 1:1 and direct proposition to have it removed where it matters. At some point, the index is refreshed when the content isn't available. It seems crazy and lazy to ask the search engine to limit access when they have a beef with the content of a website. The loser is the individual trying to fix their history or what is written but most of us would probably just shrug it off as beyond our limit resources or a bad mistake after asking nicely to have it removed. Starting with google and then attempting to locate every other search engine that may pop up in the future seems like a bad plan to begin with. What is ironic is getting it removed from government websites/public records is probably the most difficult. ;-)
The main reason was the feeling of unfair treatment and the thirst for revenge.
It's actually worse than your summary suggests.
1. The British naval blockade of Germany had resulted in large numbers of deaths among the civilian population. The British even blockaded neutral countries adjacent to Germany to prevent supplies reaching Germany. The British had refused to sign prior treaties that would make naval blockages of food and medical supplies a violation of the laws of war, effectively creating a double standard regarding what is and is not a war crime.
Having family members, even children, die because of this heartless policy - enacted by a nation that really had no legitimate business in the war - really pissed off the Germans.
2. Soon after the war started, private entities in the USA began selling huge amounts of munitions to Britain (which stupidly had decided to enter a war it had no business entering, only then to discover they weren't in any way prepared to be in that war!). These entities arranged to have the US government (invest in America, buy a politician!) get very upset when the Germans tried in turn to blockage the British.
Turnabout should be fair play, but it isn't when sociopaths see the opportunity to make huge amounts of money!
There was so much money to be made selling munitions to Britain (which had lots of wealth, thanks to its exploitative colonial empire) that they even used passenger ships such as the Lusitania to transport them, disguised as a cargo of innocent goods (hardly an ideal means of transport, a dedicated cargo ship is so much more efficient, but the space was there and the siren song of great profits was calling!). This was confirmed by Irish divers in the late 20th century: the munitions are still there on the wreck (despite attempts by the British government to blow the whole thing up in their "depth charge practice").
This eventually led to the USA entering the war (an event that proved decisive, in spite of the relatively short time the USA participated).
This double standard -- it was ok for Britain to blockage Germany, but not the reverse -- made the USA look really bad, pissed off the Germans for a long time afterwards, and was the primary reason the isolationist movement in the USA became so strong (significantly delaying US entry into WW2). People in the USA didn't like seeing their government become the tool of the super-elite, a group of wealthy and influential people who saw the opportunity to become even more wealthy through arms sales and were willing to do whatever it took to achieve their ends (not much different from today).
3. Germany was the last nation on the continent to mobilize for war (an act that in those days was the equivalent of a declaration of war) and yet got saddled with the blame for the war after the fact. Worse, the Germans had attempted to get the others to halt their mobilization, only to be rebuffed. This really pissed off the Germans, especially as the facts started to come out regarding how Serbian intelligence officers had been involved in setting up the assassination that started the whole thing! There was no possible justification for the French and Russians to have started a war to protect a nation that engaged in those kinds of underhanded and dishonorable tactics (however "unofficial" the assassination operation may have been).
CNIL French order Google to get off their lawn.
*This joke is funniest when read aloud.