Slashdot Mirror
Now Google Must Censor Search Results About "Right To Be Forgotten" Removals
Mark Wilson writes, drolly, that the so-called right to be forgotten "has proved somewhat controversial," and expands on that with a new twist in a post at Beta News:
While some see the requirement for Google to remove search results that link to pages that contain information about people that is 'inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant' as a win for privacy, other see it as a form of censorship. To fight back, there have been a number of sites that have started to list the stories Google is forced to stop linking to. In the latest twist, Google has now been ordered to remove links to contemporary news reports about the stories that were previously removed from search results. All clear? Thought not... The Information Commissioner's Office has ordered Google to remove from search results links to nine stories about other search result links removed under the Right to Be Forgotten rules.
...this summary is itself in violation.
6 years from now I fully expect a slashdot article highlighting googles mandatory censorship of the censorship of the right to have the right to forget about forgetting the forgotten.
does a set of all sets include itself?
Good people go to bed earlier.
As a citizen of the EU I will say that I'm so so sorry about this mess. We if anyone should know better.
as a citizen of the EU I demand that I have the right to have Slashdot forgotten, so goog should eliminate it from its search results. also, let's forget goodle too.
Since the article in question is about a link to articles that have been removed or censored does that mean that article will have to be removed along with Slashdot's reference too?
Then they will be asked to censor articles talking about this.. and the articles based on those articles.. etc...
There are no American tanks in Baghdad.
Really. Move along now.
Legislate them out of existence. It's always fun to watch a slow motion shakedown by a government play out.
Given that the EU is stuck with it for the time being perhaps it's time to see if there are not some fringe benefits. Fed up hearing about every detail of some stupid celebrity's life? Apply to have every story about them disappear from the web! Alternatively if we try that for a few important, reasonably well-behaved politicians hoping to get re-elected I imagine we might see the laws changed rather quickly...
Google needs to delist all UK links from its search database, even going so far as to closing it offices over there until this stupid rule is overturned.
This is ridiculous. If the content is still out there, then Google, and all other search engines should index it. I can see asking them to not cache it, but to use stro,g-arm tactics to FORCE them to actively filter it out of results is, to my mind, a violation of their freedom of speech. Which SHOULD trump the freedom to F up and then hide it from the public.
Google and MS and all the other search engines should just threaten to pull out of the EU en mass rather than abide by this rediculous law.
The article clarifies just what is being asked of Google:
"Let's be clear. We understand that links being removed as a result of this court ruling is something that newspapers want to write about. And we understand that people need to be able to find these stories through search engines like Google. But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant's name."
In other words, a Google search for "right to be forgotten" can still link to said newspaper article. However, a search for the name of an individual who has had his/her information purged, and was therefore mentioned in said article, will not result in the article being listed I don't agree with the ruling but it's at least attempting (poorly) to balance freedom of the press and the privacy of the impacted individuals.
Data is contagious. Google's bots crawl data.
Like the copyright mafia, they're learning the hard way that it's pretty hard to maintain exclusive control over an unconcious, intangible, not-a-thing-but-a-mental-construct that has to be controlled everywhere in the universe at once.
"They" not necessarily being Google, who are probably more aware of the futility.
I see that since the "Delete From My Mind-Inator" was destroyed, he is still trying to get this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... video forgotten.
I wonder how well this will work out? Do you think he calls this the "Right to Forget-inator"?
IMarv
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
Didn't Monty Python do a skit on this?
She swallowed the cow to catch the dog
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat...
Even a child can see how this ends. Best of luck with your censorship, Europe.
Dear leftists and liberals of EU
The country of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin thinks you are stooopid
Anyone truly interested in privacy would never attempt to have the interwebs "forget" them. If I ever get doxed, I'll just start a campaign of lies about myself and a few other people of various levels of credibility. If anyone asks about them, I'll just say "ya, I know about it. I somehow got misidentified by some vindictive hackers as someone they're mad at or something. None of it's true."
To be sure, that's exactly what the rich and powerful who rule the world do. There are so many conspiracy theories about the illuminati, lizard people, planet niribu, the free masons, etc. that we have no idea what to believe. I'm sure some of it's true, but good f-ing luck figuring out which parts to believe.
We apologise for the fault in the censored search results. Those responsible have been sacked.
We apologise again for the fault in the censored search results. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
The directors of the firm hired to continue the censored search results after the other people had been sacked, wish it to be known that they have just been sacked. The censored search results have been completed in an entirely different style at great expense and at the last minute.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's the United States' job to dictate how the interwebs should be run, you silly geese!
“If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”
Looks like George Orwell was spot on.
Then again Oldthinkers unbellyfeel EU right?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I have have a natural right to remember everything I experience. This right trumps any interest by anyone else for me to forget it. Persistent storage is an augmentation of my memories, and therefore an extension of my body. I own my body and my persistent storage. Therefore any suggestion that there is a "right to be forgotten" is total nonsense, and should be dismissed as such. You have a right to pursue anonymity, but if I identify you, too bad. If you want me to forget you, you have a right to pursue it, but not a right to force me. I can be friendly, and oblige your request; or I can refuse, and you can attempt to ostracize me. It's then my reputation that delivers my fate.
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
...Is that you can't talk about Right To Be Forgotten?
It's fun watching the EU fly in ever-decreasing circles until it flies up its own colon.
This one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/4072892.stm
Some guy on hold in a customer help line realized he could change the automatic recording greeting callers und recorded his own message telling callers that the company didn't care about them. A lot of foul language included. EPIC!
Double-plus goodful this memory hole is.
Speedfully rectify this double-plus-ungood write or I will upsub this to minitruth.
The whole idea of the right to be forgotten is NOT to remove the information, but instead to make it a bit harder to get to. That way when some shmuck posts a photo of his ex girlfriend, it won't be the very first thing that pops up on a search of her name.
But it still should let people find the information eventually, after a significant search - such as looking for lists of things 'forgotten'.
It is impossible - without forever modifying the internet in major BAD ways to totally prevent information from getting out, but it can be made more difficult.
There is NO VALID REASON to de-link sites that list right to be forgotten information. It does not materially help those the law is intended to help, instead it simply makes life harder for Google.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There are a number of meta search engines out there that just generate a series of search requests on various sites and collect and merge the results. So if I did a search on CowboyNeal, the meta search would just fire off search requests to public record databases, news service web sites, etc. as well as Google. They don't actually index anything, but distribute and collect queries and results, much like gopher did.
So if CowboyNeal wanted to 'disappear', he'd have to seek out every database and have his records purged. If the authorities order the meta engine to block searches on the term "CowboyNeal", that becomes obvious as the meta engine returns almost instantly with "nothing found" (other tricks exist to detect this blacklisting as well).
Have gnu, will travel.
If Google would spin off a bankruptcy remote subsidiary that can siphon search results from "rest-of-the-world-Google" and then hack them to pieces with whatever censorship razors the EU wants applied to its citizen, then we could all be happy. The EU would have dedicated, censored-to-taste search, and the rest of the world can continue on without having to worry about the EU trying to legislate what their non-citzens can see. I don't know if they could just add it under the Alphabet umbrella, but making a nice clean break for Eurozone search may be their best bet in keeping the Euro-man off its back.
Maybe this whole Ashley Madison thing is an EU attempt to win over 30M converts to thinking RTBF is great thing.
Two highly intelligent people that the Democrats love to badmouth. Interesting that you bring them up.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'm using Bing which I think hasn't been targeted by as much of this stuff. Its as good as google in my opinion. DuckDuckGo is my next move if bing goes tits up. My issue with duckduckgo is that the site handles very strangely... and there are odd things about how text is copied from search results. I think the site might require active javascript to do a search which neither google nor bing require for searching. They need it for other things but the searching requires none.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
... although I don't think even Google can keep up with the number of content being created about him :-(
sarah palin is so smart, she quit her job halfway through.
sarah palin is the world's foremost expert on raising celibate children
donald trump is so smart, he thinks his dead casinos were a "good investment"
So, they have to censor the censorship about censoring.
Table-ized A.I.
This is good thing, kids who are now adults don't need their names to be google searchable about their victimization when people google their names.
Courts seal juvenile records but he press can find out and publish articles. Just because people want to troll and mirror the articles, should also be removed.
If societies didn't hound victims like rock stars, we wouldn't be running into this mess.
NSA and government big data == bad.
Google == good.
Some of you people would pull out the pitchforks and attack the victims if people complained about Google slaughtering millions in a third-world country, I swear to god.
If they have kiddie porn links and take them down, they can't say "here is the website we had to take down off our list because it contains kiddie porn".
Likewise not to remove the requests to be forgotten rather stops them from being forgotten.
Yes, I know, Free Speech!!!!!!!
Fuck off. NDAs, copyright, patents, truth in advertising and libel/slander all kill freedom of speech. Live with it.
sarah palin is so smart, she quit her job halfway through.
Would you have been happier if she had kept the job while on the campaign trail? It isn't like she would be very effective at her job while on the road.
sarah palin is the world's foremost expert on raising celibate children
I don't know what this has to do with anything. You teach your children how they should behave, it doesn't mean that they do everything they are taught. I am guessing you don't have any children.
donald trump is so smart, he thinks his dead casinos were a "good investment"
Not every investment works out, and Trump understands that. Sometimes you have to close a business that isn't working out, it happens. Trying to hold it against him makes me wonder if you have EVER failed at ANYTHING in your life. Considering it was 4 bankruptcies out of hundreds of businesses, he has a better track record than most of us. Most successful people fail most of the time, just look at hitters in baseball for a good example, in baseball 30% success is damn good. Why do you hold someone to such a higher degree than you would hold yourself to?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
1. Become a legal citizen of a EU country
2. Legally change your name to match that of a prominent politician.
3. Demand that Google remove all search results for your name.
4. Repeat as necessary, especially during campaign season.
"We are sorry that all news coverage of your reelection campaign was removed from Google search results. Unfortunately, this was necessary to comply with EU law." - Google
he has a better track record than most of us.
He was born into hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, no duh.
in baseball 30% success is damn good.
The red sox are winning 45% of the time and they are in LAST PLACE
Why do you hold someone to such a higher degree than you would hold yourself to?
WELL DUH. They are running for president and I AM NOT.
So create a website that periodically does an automatic rewrite of the stories (change a few nouns, verbs, articles, and punctuation) and generates new URLs for them. By the time one link gets removed, another will have taken its place. Repeat unto infinity.
OK, well it may be defined in law somewhere, and it may be possible to remove some item from a result set, but rights or no rights, it is never going to be possible to remove all traces of a document from all storage devices worldwide.
live with it.
The ability to remove the data needs to be done at the source and leave the search engines do what they are supposed to do.
I used to think that George Orwell's "memory hole" was just hyperbole. How could that ever be implemented in the real world. Well, here you have it. It doesn't have to be 100% to be effective, so long as most people can't easily find the information, it's effective gone.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
ironic
Now that is Alphabet exists, how long will it be before they wind up Google Inc. and create separate legal entities for Google Search and Google.eu? If Google.eu is a separate legal entity, they can be fully compliant with EU demands, while Google Search, which would have no legal presence in the EU, would be outside of EU jurisdiction. This could be done for other countries and jurisdictions: Google.us, Google.cn, Google.ru, etc. Each region would just buy global search results off Google Search and filter them accordingly. Google.com would not exist as an entity, and would just redirect to whatever your local flavour is and if you really wanted to bypass this and get global results you could go to Google.xyz.
I have mixed feelings about this whole "right to be forgotten" thing. Some teenager doing something stupid when he's sixteen is quite a bit different different than a corrupt career politician getting caught taking a payoff. I keep wondering just how many of these things "being forgotten" shouldn't be.
Instead of returning 0 queries to a search result, Google should return 1,238,384 (or whatever) results are being blocked by government censorship. But I'm sure if they did they would end up back in court.
Never could figure how a "techie" radio host that nobody has ever seen, could be "hot."
type a search term in google
response: why are you looking for that? why dont you know the answer already? are you aware that some of the potential results from your inquiry could be forbidden to look at? since ignorance of the law is no excuse, we can assume that you DO know this, that you WOULD use the links, and that you would then be viewing illegal or forbidden material. therefore, as a preemptive action, we are placing you under arrest, effective immediately. please stay at your current location, the thought police will be arriving within 1 hour. if you are not at home when they arrive, the standard charge for viewing inappropriate material will be automatically increased to "wilfully engaging in disruptive behaviors with the intent to create social unrest, mayhem, and revolution". the mandatory sentence for this charge is life in supermax prison. thank you for using google.
Does the job title "Information Commissioner" immediately bring Orwell to mind for anyone else?
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Would you have been happier if she had kept the job while on the campaign trail? It isn't like she would be very effective at her job while on the road.
Umm, while your defense of Palin is noteworthy, It might be handy to note that the 2008 Presidential election took place on November 4, 2008, and the governor's resignation took place on July 26, 2009. Roughly 9 months later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
sarah palin is the world's foremost expert on raising celibate children
I don't know what this has to do with anything. You teach your children how they should behave, it doesn't mean that they do everything they are taught. I am guessing you don't have any children.
Actually, Ms Palin's children appear to be raised with the same values as her, So I suspect Mama Bear figures she did a great job. Notable is that Bristol, the unwed mother, who makes a fair amount of money by preaching abstinance to trotskyite's children She erned $262,500 at least one year doing just that..
She's pregnant again - out of wedlock - again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
It seems to be a recurring theme among those who would pronounce themselves as somehow better than others. The Palin family has that quality in good supply.
It seems we get family value Senators woh look to engage in oral sex in airport bathrooms, Preachers who rail against Gays, yet have ongoing affiars with other men, Governors who run off to foreign countries with some floozy they are fucking, while they are still married, and get re-elected to another position. a surprisinly log list of pol who like to have sex with underage males.
You may want to defend these people. I consider them and anyone regardless of political stripe as slezeballs who should be arrested if applicable, or at least stop trying to act like they are superior and moral and honest beings. Allow me to put this in bold:
There is not one goddamned thing wrong with being conservative.
But!
These are people held in high regard who are incredibly hypocritical. Unwed mother who does one thing, yet tells everyone else they need to behave another way. That's just a sample as noted above. Her mother quitting halfwy through a elected office, yet defenders will twist themselves into knots trying to spin a story that she didnt quit.. And on and on and on.
But has the propaganda been so effective that people will defend grifters ike those who will let you give them as much money as you are willing to give, demanding you live in a way they never would, while delivering nothing else but vague hatred to breed more hatred and money for them - well, this isn't even remotely conservatism. It's Trotskyism.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I don't see how Google US should be compelled to do anything;
In this case ICO - This is a UK based authority. Google US should tell 'em to fsck off. That, or ignore them completely.
Google in general should get it's search/hosting services out of Europe, and possibly also outside of the US.
Send a big F-U to all those DMCA, and right to censorship requests. Google is not being socially responsible following these requests, they are the result of bad laws. If they host elsewhere with vulnerable locations reduced to programming, research and sales, surely they can't be compelled.
An european speaking here, and one not sorry at all. Right to be Forgotten is part of the Right to Privacy, which is a Human Right even in spite of United States failing to understand it - or, should I say, willing to fail to understand it. This news is absolutely non-news. Of course if you must censor old informations, you must censor new informations which reproduce the old ones, too - what, do you really need Captain Obvious to come in and make you notice that? -Ignacio Agulló
Oooooh... I love recursion! What comes next??