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.

Comments

Considering how fast Google ditched China

[ArmoredDragon]

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.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[ArmoredDragon]

Another problem I'm having with this is that when you look at the way other countries handle information they don't like (that is, national firewalls) why is it that France doesn't just step up to the plate and create a GFW around their own border routers to prevent their citizens from accessing undesirable Google pages? Why is it Google's responsibility to make sure that French citizens can't see what their government doesn't want them to see?

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Schmorgluck]

It's a EU-wide policy that the CNIL is merely spearheading.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Schmorgluck]

Because Google has activities and even assets in the EU, and must comply with the EU's data policy.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[ASDFnz]

Citation needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

There you go :D .

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Anonymous Coward]

They should absolutely leave France. Individual EU countries have some extremely bizarre and authoritarian rules. If each and every one of them can apply them extra-nationally, then we have an intractable problem.

For example: Sweden forbids communication of the race of criminals in their press. A muslim man rapes a white woman? The race of the attacker is protected by the state.

Can Sweden enforce this anti-free-press ruling extra-nationally? What if they can?

The only answer is to leave said little fiefdoms entirely and let them wallow in isolation and non-standard tech.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Anonymous Coward]

A muslim man rapes a white woman? The race of the attacker is protected by the state.

You know Muslim is not a race, right?

Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China

[cyber-vandal]

Who do they think they are? Americans?

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[aaaaaaargh!]

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.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, there is actually some sanity to the French ruling.

Putting aside the argument about whether people like the level of data protection citizens in Europe get or not, the fact is that Google breached European data protection law - that is not in doubt, that is what the original "right to be forgotten" ruling is about - I put right to be forgotten in quotes, because none of this has anything to do with the right to be forgotten, that's a new thing that's being written and not even in law yet, quite why Google and the media are desperate to get that wrong all the fucking time I've no idea, but it is what it is.

Google's breach was purely about the European Data Protection Directive and it's national implementations, given that we know Google breached European law in this area, it's also worth pointing out that Google should not have had this personal data in the first place. Under the Data Protection Directive, simply censoring it in one jurisdiction is not sufficient remedy, the law is clear, if Google is informed that it has data that is incorrect, no longer relevant, and it holds that data under no protective clause (e.g. law enforcement), then it must correct or remove this data - there's no "Oh it's okay, we've moved it offshore to America" - that in itself is illegal if it shouldn't be holding the data in the first place.

This isn't just about Google, ALL companies wishing to operate in Europe and hold personal data fall under the exact same set of rules, it's only Google that seems to have a problem with it for whatever reason. But right or wrong, the fact is that simply censoring search results jurisdiction by jurisdiction was clearly never a valid legal remedy to the problem. It's not surprising that a court has pointed this out to Google - Google needs to understand that if it wants to operate in Europe, then any personal data it holds on Europeans must be protected to the exact same standards as every other company in Europe is expected to and largely does treat it. Oddly, I notice Google puts a blanket note saying some results may be censored on ANY search for a name on Google whether results are censored or not. It's odd that they do that when say, they only list DMCA takedown notices where a search result brings one up.

Honestly, the fact Google is so alone in desperately fighting this one I'm genuinely beginning to wonder if there's some truth in the conspiracy theories about Google being an NSA data harvesting tool. The massively organised propaganda campaign it's creating on this one, whilst every other company operating in Europe manages to deal with the law without any issue is weird to say the least.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but it appears that only the French are bonkers enough to think to apply the law world wide.

They are actually not trying to apply the law world wide. They are saying that it applies to all the search results Google serve to EU users, regardless of the URL used to access that search result (google.fr, google.com, google.xx). It is perfectly possible for Google to geo-fence this, and many large online services do this on a regular basis.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[tlambert]

I cannot believe that there is no discussion about this at higher levels of the EU.

The real problem here is that:

(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.

(2) France is still being pissy, and this is retaliation for the whole "media thing" that France had hoped to impose on YouTube and Google Play.

(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.

(4) They are laying the groundwork for a closed-door advisor position, whose job will be to write reports and justify why "it doesn't apply in this case" decisions, and then collect their paycheck.

(5) As soon as the problem is closed door, it effectively goes away, because there's no longer any public leverage.

(6) Then the worst that can happen is "an investigation of the department of investigation", which they can pretend takes as long as they want to/can push off the issue, and then conclude that there was no wrongdoing.

Problem solved. Back to business as usual.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[beanpoppa]

Except the page is not removed. Only the search engine's index to the page it removed. If there truly is a right to be forgotten, why is the EU not going after the source?

Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China

[Anonymous Coward]

It's insightful because America is notorious for applying its own laws extraterritorially, ie inside other countries. American judges truly believe that what they have to say should apply to all people on earth. The French are merely copying the principle. Expect other countries to follow as well. Turnabout is fair play and all that.

Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China

[tlambert]

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

Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China

[penguinoid]

It's insightful because America is notorious for applying its own laws extraterritorially, ie inside other countries. The French are merely copying the principle.

Then maybe France should try becoming the world's superpower, before trying to act like one.

Re: The world needs the U.S. more...

[presidenteloco]

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.

French Law extraterritorially

[jader3rd]

If removing the results worldwide isn't apply French Law extraterritorially, what is it?

google did it in a wrong way

[jarkus4]

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.

Typical sensationalist Slashdot subjectline

[luvirini]

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.

Go limp

[Todd Knarr]

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.".

Re:Story is wrong

[tlambert]

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!

A list of right to be forgotten links ..

[nickweller]

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