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France Tells Google To Remove "Right To Be Forgotten" Search Results Worldwide

Posted by samzenpus on from the clean-slate dept.

An anonymous reader writes: France's data protection authority rejected Google's appeal to limit how a European privacy ruling may be applied worldwide. Since the European Court ruling last year Google has handled close to 320,000 requests, but only de-lists the links on European versions of its sites. "Contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the C.N.I.L. to apply French law extraterritorially," the agency said in a statement.

7 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Considering how fast Google ditched China by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With China being a MUCH bigger market and all, I could see Google just outright leaving France if it came down to it. Maybe Jacques Chirac would finally get his wish of a French owned search engine.

    1. Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As a European who is generally very fond of the European Union, I'm truly ashamed about this "right to be forgotten". Whenever I see a link removed, I use a proxy to switch to Google US and I've seen countless abuses of the system. Many of the search results that are removed are clearly in the public interest.

      I cannot believe that there is no discussion about this at higher levels of the EU. If France got this right world-wide, why not Russia, China, Saudia Arabia, or Nigeria? This regulation makes no sense whatsoever. The judges who decided in favour of it must be mentally retarded.

    2. Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're making many false assumptions. Many of the links that are removed have nothing to do with a person's privacy and are relevant to the public.

      For example, some of the links to articles and posts about possible ties of Anna Ardin to CIA-funded institutions have been removed in Europe. You can easily check this. You might think that her privacy is being violated and that she's the victim of a smear campaign. But even if that is so, she is also clearly a person of public interest and her past political affiliations are important information.

      This is just one example. There are numerous more, even politicians have been caught to remove unwanted links to their past. Just check what is being removed by comparing to the US Google results.

      And yes, Google has been trying to fight DMCA takedowns for many years, and the corresponding laws were also made by mentally retarded people. Nobody seriously doubts that but two wrongs do not make a right.

    3. Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China by tlambert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is probably the sort of topic you should add your usual disclaimer about being a Google employee on.

      Former Google employee. Also former Apple employee, and former IBM employee, etc..

      It's not really relevant, since I'm not saying anything near my NDA, and just expressing an opinion as a private person with a somewhat deeper than normal interest in the workings of cases involving former employers.

      > (1) They haven't judicially defined what constitutes public interest -- because they can't because it's subjective, and making such a decision would piss everyone off and demonstrate the absurdity of the law. So there's no legal test for yes/no.

      It's decided by a court, so yes there is a legal test. The court will weigh up the possible harm to the person whose personal data is being published against the benefits to society at large.

      Sorry, no. The original court decision upholding the validity of the law only said "an overriding public interest". It did not define what constitutes "an overriding public interest", and that was left ambiguous. Just as it became Google's "responsibility" to block the content, it also became Google's "responsibility" to decide what they though a court in each country where the law applies (all of the EU) would likely decide on a particular "forget request".

      Note that the criteria thresholds in the U.K. are based on "public persons", and are derived from English Common Law, which is where the UK gets their ideas of what they believe constitutes "libel" and "slander". In France, there are slight differences, since their legal system is largely based on the Napoleonic code. While both of them can historically be traced (eventually) to the Code of Hammurabi, and thus have common roots, the criteria of what is involved in "an overriding public interest" differs between the two nations.

      Thus the whole thing is ambiguous in interpretation, and left to a third party, because it's a political third rail between the nations which make up the EU.

      So for some random guy with no media exposure who committed fraud 40 years ago, and has been saving puppies, painting rainbows and generally giving up his entire life to make the world a better place ever since, there's no genuine public benefit in publishing that past conviction - it's long expired under law, it's no longer declarable, and there's not the slightest shred of evidence to suggest it's even remotely representative of him today.

      Clearly then, he has redeemed himself in the eyes of society, so bringing it up in polite conversation, since people will recognize that themselves, without the need for a law to enforce that It Is Never To Be Mentioned Again. At worst, the person mentioning it will be considered rude and boorish, right?

      [...]Google's apparent need to hold irrelevant and out of date personal data falls under, because I can't see one.

      Remove it from the original place of publication, or protect it with a robots.txt, and the data will be removed from the next iteration of the index. Good luck with Internet Archive...

      > (3) They know that they can't win, so they're dragging their feet. It makes the politicians look like they are doing something, without actually having to really do something.

      What do you mean they know they can't win?

      I mean that they are trying to argue with a technology that was engineered and implemented to be resilient to disruption. In the Second Gulf War, the U.S. bombed the crap out of communications infrastructure used for Iraqi command and control systems. And their command and control systems stayed up, despite more than half that infrastructure being bombed to oblivion. Because *that's what it's supposed to do*; that's what it was *designed* to do.

      Some nation's law requiring information destruction is going to be about as effective at removing the information as the

  2. Go limp by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd go limp: "We'll comply with your request. Please send us the contact information for the service that you'll accept as authoritative for whether or not a request from a particular IP address originates in France or not. We'll also require a binding agreement that the determination of this service cannot be contested by either Google or the French government, and that if any third party demonstrates that the service made an incorrect determination use of that service will be discontinued and the French government shall not demand compliance from Google until the French government has selected a new authority. Until we are in receipt of this information and agreement, Google will unfortunately be unable to operate the French-localized Google site and will be unable to serve search results for France or any French entity or person. Have a nice day.".

  3. Re:Story is wrong by tlambert · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The critical text here is: "when offering services in Europe" . No compliance with the directive is needed when offering serivces outside of Europe.

    Next stop:

    Google is responsible for policing requests made from VPNs for the French, since it's technologically impossible, but the French really hate VPNs, and are hoping Google will find a way of determining the origin country of a VPN through magic pixie dust...

    Allllllllll aaaaaabbbbboarrrrd! The insanity train is about to leave the station, and gaze into its naval! Fasten your seat belts, and keep your head, arms, and legs inside the technology ignorance train, until it comes to a complete stop!

  4. A list of right to be forgotten links .. by nickweller · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How Hidden From Google started.

    List of BBC web pages which have been removed from Google's search results

    "Google .. has not proceeded with delisting on other geographical extensions or on google.com, which any internet user may alternatively visit .. this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe." ref