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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.
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?
"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.
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.
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.
So you agree that you should be able to be charged under Thai laws for criticizing their king? Or Saudi laws for blasphemy?
Or do you understand there are such things as jurisdiction, and Google is saying "we reject your assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction"?
Unless you think your posts on the internet should be under the jurisdiction of every piss-pot dictator on the planet, what the hell do you expect from Google?
Google is doing the right thing here. French courts have the right to make decisions on what happens in France. They sure as fuck don't have the right to tell Google what to do in every other country. The world doesn't work that way.
If that was true, we'd all be under Sharia law or whatever country mostly loudly decided its laws applied globally.
You enjoy the same protections as Google ... if in your home country France sends you a letter telling you that you must comply with French law ... you too can tell them to fuck off. Unless of course you live in France.
Do you really think that France has the right to dictate the behavior of the entire internet? If so, you're a fool.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
What Google is essentially saying is "When a user in the US goes to Google.com, he shouldn't get filtered results because a French court said 'Don't include these listings.'" I completely agree with Google here. If you go to Google.fr and the court said "listings for X should be filtered", then Google has no choice but to filter those rulings. (Either that, or get out of France.) The courts of one country, however, shouldn't be allowed to decide what can and can't be shown in other countries, though. If that were the case, then Slashdot would need to take down any comment that mentioned Tiananmen Square because China disapproved and any website talking about gay rights would be nixed because Russia doesn't like that. As the Google statement said, you'd quickly limit what anyone could say online because some country somewhere has probably declared such speech illegal.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's absolutely unreasonable to demand that Google, or any other search engine, take down these listings... or any listing at all... whether it's in .fr .com .uk.co or anywhere else.
If the content is libelous, defamatory, or otherwise illegal, the proper legal steps should be followed to have said content taken down at the source. And the next time the Google runs its spider, it will vanish from the index. What France is trying to do is shuffle the responsibilities of its own courts off onto Google and demanding that they perform those services for free an ineffectively (Since the banned content is still there.) And that's aside from the fact that in many cases, they're demanding that Google delist content that is not, in fact, libel or defamation.
Imagine all the people...
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.
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.
Yes, Google has a presence in France. The French Google subsidiary does de-list things in accordance with local laws. Google subsidiaries in countries that don't have those laws - Japan, the US, Canada, etc. don't have to follow those laws, but that's what the French are asking for.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
put an airtight dome over austin and leave the rest of us alone
damn wannabe californians.