Google Scours 1.2 Million URLs To Conform With EU's "Right To Be Forgotten" Law (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a Google report the company has evaluated 1,234,092 URLs from 348,085 requests since the EU's May 2014 "right to be forgotten" ruling, and has removed 42% of those URLs. Engadget reports: "To show how it comes to its decisions, the company shared some of the requests it received and its decisions. For example: a private citizen that was convicted of a serious crime, but had that conviction overturned during appeal, had search results about the crime removed. Meanwhile a high ranking public official in Hungary failed to get the results squelched of a decades-old criminal conviction. Of course, that doesn't mean the system is perfect and the company has already been accused of making mistakes."

Comments

Re:Lord of the Rings

[CrimsonAvenger]

could of

could've

would of

would've

Oh, and "harnessing" might have been more appropriate than "harassing". Depending on your intent, of course.

"Right to be forgotten" "Law"

[Carewolf]

Please add scare quotes to "law" too, because there is no such law, and never has been. It was a ruling, a ruling stating local national laws also apply to Google evne if the local laws are stupid, but it there was never any EU laws involved.

Re:"Right to be forgotten" "Law"

[AmiMoJo]

The national laws implement Directive 95/46/EC on data protection. This directive was adopted by the EU, meaning that each member state is required to implement it in that state's laws.

The recent ruling was an interpretation of the directive, confirming that it does apply to Google, or rather that the national laws based on the directive apply to Google. Those national laws include things like Google being required to register with national regulators and abide by their rulings in the case of disputes.

More generally, the EU never makes laws, only directives, so you are correct in so far as there are no EU laws at all.

The directive and its implementations are not stupid, it's just that Europeans care more about their privacy and view it as a basic right, in the same way that Americans view free speech and gun ownership as a basic right. Rights don't have to be mutually exclusive, and even in the US they are often balanced against each other by courts.

What about newspapers?

[tompaulco]

Do newspapers also need to censor their old microfiche and archived paper copies, and also go door to door destroying any old copies that people or businesses may have laying around, and to the dump as well? If not, then why just pick on google, and not all other forms of media? Also, they should probably destroy the memories of human beings that remember the accusations coming out on the news.

Re:What about newspapers?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Do newspapers also need to censor their old microfiche and archived paper copies

No. They don't even generally have to remove their online content.

If not, then why just pick on google, and not all other forms of media?

Because Google is a big American company that is hurting European publishers and media companies. So, European publishers and media companies lobbied their legislators, riled up voters with editorials and "reporting", and the rest is history.

Re:Mistakes?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

You're basically saying that data protection rules about "storing information about individual" should be consistent for both search engines and other content providers. I agree. My point is: under "the right to be forgotten", the rules are not consistent.

If the rules were consistent, people whose privacy was violated would simply go to the original publisher who put that information online to get it removed; Google wouldn't have to get involved. But under current rules, the original publisher can continue providing that information, it's just that search engines can't show it.