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France Tells Google To Remove "Right To Be Forgotten" Search Results Worldwide
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.
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.
It's a good thing you Americans aren't arrogant imperialist bastards, cause if you were, some people might take your sentiment the wrong way.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
'France needs Google more than Google needs France'.
Google makes around a billion dollars a year from French users.
This is only a percent or so or US profits.
The question is not if france needs google more than google needs france.
It's if google needs a billion dollars more than the slight reduction in profit elsewhere due to users boycotting google.
If removing the results worldwide isn't apply French Law extraterritorially, what is it?
Google just removed the results from some local domains (fr, co.uk etc), but left it working for com domain. Basically it means they failed at delisting since EU citizen can still easily avoid it. Instead they should comply by doing some kind of geoip delisting as then they would be really compliant within EU jurisdiction.
The story is wrong. The court did not instruct Google to delist worldwide. Rather, the court instructed Google to delist from all Google domains, but Google only needs to delist when the query comes from a European IP address.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Do they even know, what they are asking for? If they are absolutely insisting on enforcing the ludicrous "right to be forgotten" a Great Firewall of Europe it needs to be then, as only that will enable the invention of history, which at its core it is.
The French Statement is malarkey. "Finally, contrary to what Google has stated, 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." So we're not applying our laws extraterritorially, we're requiring the company to do so if they want to do business here.
To be fair, a lot of other countries have some form of that. But it's still ridiculous.
If they had said you had to geofence the results so they're not accessible in France, it would be more believable.
The French do not try to apply them worldwide.
They want Google to apply them to all searched from France regardless of the domain name. Today you can just type in google.com or any other national domain and bypass the law.
Complying with your request in this manner is rather hard due to other laws of other countries we do business in that we actually do have to comply with (unlike, say, yours). Instead we did the next best thing and removed all French results worldwide. We hope this satisfies you.
--signed, Google.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Care to inform us what we need you for? To destabilize countries politically or economically, I'm unsure which function you serve is more important.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.".
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.
Yes, Google should just close up Google Ireland and forget about the European Union altogether.
The IRS would love that.
I'm pretty sure the IRS would not give a damn.
Google is in full compliance with the U.S. law, and the laws of other countries.
While U.S. politicians would like to get their grubby hands on, and spend some of that tasty, tasty money, the IRS merely enforces the U.S. tax code, up to and including the Criminal Investigation division sending special agents out to interview and conduct searches under search warrant, and to participate in arrests with federal law enforcement, should the U.S. Attorney determine that the evidence supports a federal arrest warrant.
Generally, you'd have to have a lot of criminal wrong-doing, not just tax evasion, and it's a teensy bit hard to arrest a corporation, even if they are technically "people". Typically, they'd seize all assets and shutter the business. However, if you thought some corrupt bankers (who received no jail time) were "too big to fail", you have not seen what "too big to fail" actually means.
In any case, Google is in compliance with all laws, and even should the money be taxed, it won't be double taxed by the U.S. (nor should it be); they will just open up a real estate business, or start "Google Fiber Europe" or something with the funds, since as long as the funds are earned outside the U.S., they can be spent outside the U.S. without incurring a U.S. tax burden; they only become U.S. income when they are brought back.
In other words, even if they shuttered their search business entirely within Europe, and used the money to pay back Greece's debt (or buy all of Greece, like Kim Bassinger bought Braselton, Georgia, and then run the country better; or build ghost cities in Latvia and the Czech Republic, etc.), the money would never be realized as U.S. income.
Also...
Pulling out of France entirely (by blocking all access to Google properties from within France) would put the Righteous Fear Of God into the rest of the E.U., and the decision would be quickly reversed.
How Hidden From Google started.
.. 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
List of BBC web pages which have been removed from Google's search results
"Google