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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?
Its not unreasonable to expect Google to do the delisting on all TLDs when accessed in Europe.
"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.
From Wiki:
>> In 2003–2004, the European Commission investigated the bundling of Windows Media Player into Windows, a practice which rivals complained was destroying the market for their own products.[citation needed] Negotiations between Microsoft and the Commission broke down in March 2004, and the company was subsequently handed down a record fine of €497 million ($666 million) for its breaches of EU competition law.[citation needed] Separate investigations into alleged abuses of the server market were also ongoing at the same time.[citation needed] On December 22, 2004, the European Court decided that the measures imposed on Microsoft by the European Commission would not be delayed, as was requested by Microsoft while waiting for the appeal.[citation needed] Microsoft has since paid a €497 million fine, shipped versions of Windows without Windows Media Player, and licensed many of the protocols used in its products to developers in countries within the European Economic Area. However, the European Commission has charactized the much delayed protocol licensing as unreasonable, called Microsoft "non-compliant" and still violating antitrust law in 2007, and said that its RAND terms were above market prices; in addition, they said software patents covering the code "lack significant innovation", which Microsoft and the EC had agreed would determine licensing fees.[13] Microsoft responded by saying, that other government agencies had found "considerable innovation".[14][15] Microsoft appealed the facts and ruling to the European Court of First Instance with hearings in September 2006.
I am failing to see how this relates to the current argument at hand.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
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.
You can violate Russia's anti-gay-propaganda law today, if you wish, with no repercussion to yourself whatsoever. No incorporation needed.
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
>> internet is not in a country, it is it's own country
Hmmm...I guess you CAN buy weed before 8am.
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.
If a Scotsman commits rape in France, he may be tried in England.
That's probably because the Scots are still under English occupation.
If a Scotsman commits rape in France, he MAY NOT be tried in Turkey. See?
bickerdyke
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.
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.
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.
>> 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?
I think you are missing a major point of the discussion. Google complies with French law in France. Google complies with EU law in the EU. Google did not want to comply with Chinese law in China, so they left China. The issue is that France is trying to force Google to comply with French law everywhere else. I hope you can see the distinction.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
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.
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
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.
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.
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 :-).
Barring niche circumstances linking the crime to England, like the Scotsman travelling on official government business, or the raped person being English, or the rapist having a really long dick and so the crime was actually committed on the other side of the English Channel, then I don't believe this is true at all.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
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
And the French court's decision essentially would mean that we would all need to abide by Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws while online despite not living in Russia. Other countries have tried applying their laws to the Internet as a whole and they always fail. You can apply your laws within your borders, but you can't declare that EVERYONE needs to follow your rules no matter where they live.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Join the French Foreign Legion.
Have gnu, will travel.
It could be no more free than the least free place, and quite possibly less free than that, yes.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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...
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.
"how do I get to be a multinational corporation so I can tell local authorities to fuck off too?"
France is free to make it illegal for its citizens to use Google. This would be the kind of money pit bureacrats love, like British TV licensing.
"If a Scotsman commits rape in France, he may be tried in England."
No true Scotsman would commit rape in France.
But somehow it's ok for a german user to go to google.de and have the results filtered due to the DMCA, a thing google does. ( http://i.imgur.com/VX9fy8n.png... )
Google makes a search engine for each country. France wants results removed from other countries versions of Google, not just the French one. You can access the Irish version of Google from France if you want to.
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.
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?
No, I certainly don't, but while google wants to do business in those countries, it's going to be subject to their laws whether it likes it or not. If google wasn't going business with those pisspot dictators and had no representation in their country, they'd be unable to do anything to google.
The only reason in this case that google is subject to the laws is becaus they're operating where the laws apply. That gives the jurisdiction in question power because they can ultimately seize assets, arrest people and so on.
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.
And therein lies the problem. A decent sized chunk of google does in fact reside in France.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
"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"
It may be silly of the French, but it is within their rights to tell google to leave the country or abide by the rules.
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.
Don't know much about Scots history or legal system, do you?
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.
Both are wrong, so what's your point?
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
OK then, lets assume that France gets what it wants from Google & establishes precedent. How do you think France is going to react when Turkey uses it force Google to remove all information on the Armenian Genocide that the French National assembly commemorated a few months ago? Not just on google.tk but also on google.fr?
Hint: French politicians would start claiming that Brussels & the EU forced the precedent upon them just as they have done every time they impose regulations without thinking about the consequences.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
You misunderstand. I'm not arguiong right or wrong here.
The French governmant can literally ask for whatever they want. And while google has a presence in the country they can enforce their demands on the portion of google residing in France.
The choice is therefore to behave globally in a way the French find acceptable or never do any business in France at all. Such things are in fact not without precedent. For example the UK has anti bribery laws, and they're specified in such a way that they can traverse the graph of corporate ownership, so if you have a UK subshdiary of a global company and some other subsidiary is caught bribing people, there's hell to pay in the UK.
So yeah, while google want French money, they have to do what the French want.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
EU must protect its citizens, The great firewall of EU will now be implemented :)
yayyy
You seem to misunderstand me. This isn't a question of right or wrong so much as a question of if google wants to operate in France, they have to make their worldwide operations acceptable to the French.
If they don't want to do that, they can choose to give up the huge pile of shiny lucre from the world's 6th largest economy.
Even if they want to maximise revenue it's still a tricky optimization. If they stick to too many global censorship laws they will risk people going elsewhere and therefore lose money. If they don't, they risk losing money by not operating in certain countries. From their point of view, some countries are worth keeping, others are not.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, there's hell to pay if said executives ever enter british controlled soil or are extradited. I'm not sure if the company in question's assets would be siezed pending trial, but I suppose that depends on the teeth of the laws in question.
Assuming that Google is actually in material breach of the law, then yes. They influence the laws, submit to the order (effectively giving up all right of control over their content internationally) or do like they did in China and completely exit the territory. Trust me from being in China for a trip, its a bitch to live without google services.
Note, all the French Newspaper publishers raising a stink will be even more screwed since all their cheap revenue AdSense will also fly away, but oh well. Back to hiring Ad sales guys!
Bye!
Calling it occupation is nutjobbery. The historically joined it willingly, and they even recently had a vote on independence and decided they didn't want to be.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
The French have never been too smart about building useless fortifications designed to keep stuff out.
That's quite the double-edged sword you've got there. That lack of global jurisdiction is used by both the rich and the multinational corps to skirt laws and taxation that are unfavorable to them in their home country. These are the same groups that use treaties to enact local laws that would otherwise be rejected by the populace because treaties skirt the popular vote. Lack of global jurisdiction and global representation is fundamentally reshaping all free countries today.
France doesn't have a right to "dictate the behavior of the entire internet", but certainly we all have some right in influencing how we are governed at that scale.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
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.
If a Scotsman commits rape in France, he may be tried in England.
No true Scotsman would commit rape in France!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
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.
put an airtight dome over austin and leave the rest of us alone
damn wannabe californians.
I'm not sure that's true - wouldn't the French need a reason to shut down google.fr? The French government can't do anything to subsidiaries in other countries. They could maybe fine google.fr, but I would think they'd lose that in court, since google.fr is following their laws. They can certainly ask subsidiaries in other countries to do what they want, but I don't think they're under any sort of compulsion to agree.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
i'd actually like to hear your reasoning on that.
if french google is a french subsidiary
google.com is american.
on what basis would france kick them out?
google france presumably is in full compliance with the courts, and google.com effectively has no presence in france. can they refuse a company for non-compliance of a partner that the court has no jurisdiction over?
I mean, shouldn't french laws protect french companies from the tyranny of the french government too?
well yeah, because google really doesn't want to move out of the US
This isn't a question of right or wrong so much as a question of if google wants to operate in France, they have to make their worldwide operations acceptable to the French.
It is about right and wrong. It is completely wrong for one country to try to extend it's sovereignty into another country by extending their laws to that other country. It is also not about the people of France making this decision as the question has not been put to the people. This is the opinion of the CNIL, a bureaucratic organization, and has no force of law. The court system and/or politicians are yet to be involved. I bet if this ever went to court, even in France, this "ruling" would be thrown out.
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.
Oh I do follow your reasoning but you set into motion actions and then don't follow through on understanding the consequences. you advise jumping off a 10 story building because it's a rush without looking ahead to being pulped when you hit the ground.
At first the French judges ordered that google.fr be censured & google obeyed. At present the judges are ordering google.* to be censured. Some pretend that Google could just censure according to geographical origin but then the judges will note that people are using VPN's & proxies to sidestep the censorship and order that they be blocked too. Saying that they won't is denying that the ground is fast approaching.
Google operates in France under local laws, just as it operates in the US, in Thailand, in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia, etc. If France is allowed to impose it's narrow conception of Internet Freedom on the rest of the world then the rest of the world will be able to impose it's views on France.
Pretending that, no this only conditions Google's presence in the EU is equally short-sighted as the EU is FAR from uniform in it's morals and customs. Accepting the French judge's premise of extraterritoriality will mean that Greek/Lettone/Slovakian/Austrian/Spanish/... judges will be able to ban anything that THEY find offensive.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
This is a red herring. Here is why your scenario works.
1. Both England and Scotland are part of the same country;The United Kingdom. So an Englishman and a Scot are nationals of the same country. Differentiating England from Scotland just makeit the statement seem more complex.
2. Many countries claim jurisdiction when their nationals are accused of crimes in another country. They therefore try those nationals in their home country instead of extraditing to the other country.
If you want to have a more accurate statement it would be as follows;
A citizen of the UK can be tried for a rape committed in France instead of being extradited to France
That is very different than requiring a company to operate in one country under the laws of another country.
The main problem is that laws which protect Google's property - especially IP - are global, mostly thanks to international treaties.
Those treaties pertain to IP and not other laws. The point is that the "right to be forgotten" is not international law and there are no treaties to apply that law internationally. Therefore, Google does not have to apply that law internationally.
DMCA is a result of a treaty between the USA and Germany. A treaty that was approved by both elected governments. France should push for a global censorship treaty if they want to effect American search results.
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
That lack of global jurisdiction is used by both the rich and the multinational corps to skirt laws and taxation that are unfavorable to them in their home country.
- which is an extremely important right of people, the right not to be enslaved and kept in any particular country against their own will, the right to freedom of association, of private property, liberty and life.
The problem is people do not have these rights. The poor cannot just come to the U.S. and stay as long as they please.
A few people have this ability. For those with wealth, most countries have special investor visas that allow the wealthy to come and go as they please. J. Random Citizen do not have a say whether they have such a right, nor a say that this right will be respected globally.
Until we have global representation, the people will not have any such rights.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I assume that the French part of Google is a separate corporation owned fully or in part by the US part of Google, because that's how multinationals do things. Google's operations in France are important, since apparently they deliver enough value to French advertisers that French advertisers are willing to pay a lot of euros to deal with Google.
The French courts can issue orders to Google France. They can issue orders that Google France can't follow, since it doesn't have authority over the rest of Google. They can shut down Google France..
At that point, the French start using google.com or some other google site that doesn't have to obey "right to forget" orders, French companies lose customers, and France in general suffers. The French can push things that far, but it isn't a good idea for them.
Google overall can't yield to the French on this and keep operating, and most of Google is immune to French court judgments. It's partly a game of seeing who backs down, and Google won't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well, no not really. Right or wrong play no part in how this is going to play out. Thiongs will happen regardless of my opinions on the morality of it.
No one gets to impose their views on France. People get to impose their views on corporations where part of the corporation operates in their country. Those sre the consequences one has to reason about.
Now, France is the 6th largest economy which gives them considerably more bargaining power than many of the other places you mentioned. In every case google can decide to play ball or leave. And they will need to evaluate in each case whether the impact of leaving is worse financially than the impact of staying.
That is how it will play out. Right and wrong has nothing to do with it, because frankly google doesn't care about right and wrong and neither domost other large companies.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It works the same way for individuals as for corporations.
You can tell any country to fuck off, as long as you are willing to deal with the consequences. If you don't own anything in the country in question, there are few consequences. If you do own stuff in some country, they can seize it.
Google has a French subsidiary, and they are complying with French laws.
The US version of Google is not subject to French jurisdiction. Trying to make it subject to French jurisdiction would be highly problematic for France, because it would imply that if you own anything in France at all, everything you do worldwide becomes subject to French law.
France might take that position, but they'd be shooting themselves in the foot (and then in the head) with that view.
If they tried to do that, it would be a legal and economic disaster. Think about what that means.
If you run a company in France and you sell shares in your company to a foreign owner, and the foreign owner does something the French government doesn't like, you end up getting punished for it.
Conversely, if you are not French but invest in a French company, you are now subject to French law and jurisdiction, even though nothing you do has anything to do with France.
France could take that position if they chose to. It would be economic suicide for France, however.
You'll notice that Google is comfortable with having google.fr subject to French laws, also. Google is claiming that it's not bound by Chinese laws outside of China, or French laws outside of France.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Google" isn't operating in France. Google has a French subsidiary in France. That's a separate company from Google in the US. The French government doing things to Google France because they don't like what Google USA does would set a disastrous precedent for anybody doing business in France.
The DMCA complaint is by a US copyright holder against a US corporation. Furthermore, if the US copyright is valid, it can be violated in Germany as well. And there are treaties governing copyright and DMCA issues between the US and Germany.
The reason for this international reach of copyright law isn't the Americans, it's Europeans who pushed for it back in the day when Europe still produced literature and music, instead of the Eurovision Contest.
The French government doing things to Google France because they don't like what Google USA does would set a disastrous precedent for anybody doing business in France
Why? The UK had anti bribery laws with much the same reach, and the US was all over mega upload. It's not like things like this are unprecedented, and yet business continues. No one thinks they'll be the next test case.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
In what reality do you live in that France is not part of the EU & thus hasn't signed treaties that give the EU the ultimate deciding power?!? Google could pull out of France tomorrow and sell through Ireland without France being able to do anything about it due to the accords on free movement of goods & services.
Again, if the French judges get what they are pushing for, judges in the rest of the EU are going to make everyone regret it.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Because you seriously think the French government has the possibility to tell Google to leave the country? Do you realize how many people and enterprise use Google's services in France? Do you realize the havoc this would cause in France if suddenly there was no Google?
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.
Copyright is covered by international treaties; that is, it is mutually recognized everywhere. It is under those international agreements that Hong Kong agreed to cooperate with the US.
The equivalent here would be for France to ask the US government to help with enforcing France's privacy laws against a US company operating outside France. But the US government obviously has no interest in aiding France in implementing its hare-brained and draconian laws.
Funny. This is how Google plays the tax laws. They're perfectly okay with all the different national tax codes when it allows them to avoid paying taxes. Eric Schmidt has been very clear that Google is just obeying the law! Well Eric, this is the law in France. You should just obey it, yes?
Copyright is covered by international treaties; that is, it is mutually recognized everywhere. It is under those international agreements that Hong Kong agreed to cooperate with the US.
There has never been an actual conviction and yet the assets were seized. It was extraterritorial, extrajudicial enforcemnet of holywood lobbyist whims.
The equivalent here would be for France to ask the US government to help with enforcing France's privacy laws against a US company operating outside France.
That's not remotely equivalent because google has operations in France via a subsidiary.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
I forget exactly where but .tk is in New Zealand or close to it. .TK is not Turkey. Not that that changes anything.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Yes, in accordance with the agreements between Hong Kong and the US.
A subsidiary is a separate legal entity. France is free to enforce its laws against the subsidiary, not against the people who happen to own it.
Keep in mind that these draconian international copyright agreements were pushed for by Europeans back in the day when Europeans actually still produced art, literature, and music. Now that Americans produce most of the worthwhile culture and Europe produces only shit, they are calling sour grapes.
Lol thanks
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
What part of "silly" do you not understand?
CNIL French order Google to get off their lawn.
*This joke is funniest when read aloud.
No it doesn't, this is nowhere near the same. You're comparing a private persons decision about his own information, to government oppression? That is like comparing fighting for a persons copyright to North Korea censorship. Just silly.
Except you are comparing what an individual legally requests about the persons own information, with sharia law and oppression. Very convenient america not only controls the law, but also most of the prime services of the internet.
Except these aren't the same thing at all. You're comparing governments or companies covering for themselves, to individuals having search results removed (not the actual content) about themselves. You know, this would be tragically funny if some seedy porn business with a subsidiary that was legally in the US had its primary operations in a country where the porn min age is 15 and it posted nude pictures of american girls age 15-17 against their will accessible for the whole world. You bet your ass americans and the US would be up in arms and demanding it take the pictures down or else!
Your lack of experience is showing there junior.
Consider North Korea, a regime that sank a South Korean frigate les than a degrade ago with no major repercussions, that kidnapped Japanese nationals without the west being able to much of anything. We're NK interested in publishing US kiddie porn over a Chinese Internet connection there is nothing the U.S. could do other than complain.
As for your personal judgement of what is & what isn't "the same", French judges are not private citizens, at least not when they're ordering Google to impose censorship globally.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I'm not looking at a private person's decision about his own information. I'm looking at the French court's decision that application of French law needs to be applied across the entire Internet. If this is allowed, then every nation can apply its laws on everyone else, regardless of where they are. I live in the US where - for all its flaws - freedom of speech is pretty broad. There are many nations with much more strict rules about what you can and can't say. I wouldn't want those countries deciding what I can and can't say online.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
You seem to have missed the part where Google France is obeying the law. Some other Google subsidiaries (which are legally different companies, mind you) aren't obeying French laws because they don't operate in France. Again, google.fr follows French law; other Google subsidiaries don't have to.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.