Google Expands 'Right To Be Forgotten' To All Global Search Results (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google has confirmed that it will be updating its 'right to be forgotten' so that any hidden content under the ruling is removed from all versions of its search engine in countries where it has been approved. Until now Google had only been removing results from the originating country and European versions of its search engine, such as google.co.uk and google.de. The EU had previously asked for an extension of the rule to include all versions of Google. Last year, French data protection authority CNIL threatened the tech giant with a sanction should it not remove data from all of its global platforms – such as google.com – in addition to its European sites. Now, Google's new extension of the 'right to be forgotten' is expected to come into force over the next few weeks.

Comments

How do they know

[Anonymous Coward]

which articles are about you and which articles are about someone with the same name as you?

Like, I'd hate if my results go missing because one of my samenames had my pages removed.

Re:How do they know

[alvinrod]

That's an interesting thought. I wonder if someone could legally change their name to something else, say a person running for election for example, and then invoke their right to be forgotten to completely torpedo all traces of that candidate for a few days in order to throw an election. A bit far-fetched, but I am somewhat curious as to how well it would work out.

I guess someone with a common name could test this out just to see if it removes results for other people as well.

Re:How do they know

[tlhIngan]

Or Nissan Motor Company Ltd invokes the right for "Nissan" to be forgotten for just long enough to affect Nissan Computer's business to the extent that it goes out of business and/or agrees to sell the domain name to the automotive company.

That's not how Right to be Forgotten works.

Right to be Forgotten is an application of traditional meatspace record-keeping. Remember how in many places, after you've been convicted, after so many years that conviction is no longer on the books?

Or take your credit history - it only covers the past 7 years with older records, including things like bankruptcies and all that simply "forgotten" and expunged.

Right to be Forgotten is just like that.

First, it does not delete anything - it cannot. It merely breaks the link between a search term and the link it would point to.

Let's say you went to jail a decade ago and served your time and are completely free. You've lived a virtuous life since then, and a criminal record check would basically show you to be clean because your crime was wiped off the books. But a site archiving imprisonment records still lists you as being in prison. Right to be forgotten means you can break a link between your name and that site - you've done your time, and the state considers you to be clean and you can pass a criminal records check. But then an employer Googles you and sees that you were in jail. Is that fair? By law you did pass and such ancient history should be wiped. But the site showing the information has done no wrong either, so it would be bad to demand that they remove the information.

Or say you declared bankruptcy a decade ago. Since employers are doing credit history checks now, your bankruptcy is no longer shown to them for several years. But if they Google you, because some site archived news like that, you show up.

That's what right to be forgotten is all about. It only applies to individuals and only when the legal limit for such news has expired and is no longer relevant. So if you have a bankruptcy in the past 7 years, you can't invoke right to be forgotten to remove it off the internet - it's still relevant after all.

Or think of it another way - without right to be forgotten, a bunch of children are going to learn the hard way about the repercussions of their indiscretions. After all, in most jurisdictions, once you turn 18, your record is wiped and you start afresh - this includes any run-ins with the law (unless you were tried as an adult). Well, right to be forgotten lets you break all the links between the bad stuff you did as a adolescent teen and also start afresh

Re:European colonialism 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

America needs to get with the times and update their whole manifesto. They declared independence over taxation. They need to declare corporations' independence over the same.

Originally, the complaint was "no taxation without representation", but it has become clear that it needs to expand to "no representation without taxation". Pay for play, Google. You can either hide your assets in a double-Irish accounting system, or you can take advantage of the rights and privileges of being a US-based corporation, but you can't have it both ways.

Google and Twitter = Winston Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

In Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith job was to re-write historical/news paper articles to reflect the latest lies from politicians.
Not an exact corollary, but...
Also, twitter took down Politwoops which archived politicians older tweets so they could not go back and delete tweets where they changed lie X for lie Y and claimed to have never said whatever it was.

Just pointing it out...

Its Scripting time!

[ramriot]

Time to start developing that 'Write to be Unforgotten' search extension then.

Been planning this idea for a while and now seems the right time to do it. i.e.

Code a browser extension that using VPN tunnels to compare local and other nationality search results, adds back in redacted results with 'Locally Censored' tags, plus tag results seen locally but not elsewhere with 'Censored in: CN, EU etc'.

Also add CDN support to anonymously cache and test historical searches for global censorship.

Anyone interested in assisting or Beta-Testing?