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Google Appeals French Order For Global 'Right To Be Forgotten' (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the right-to-be-forgotten dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet Inc's Google appealed on Thursday an order from the French data protection authority to remove certain web search results globally in response to a European privacy ruling, escalating a fight on the extra-territorial reach of EU law. In May 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that people could ask search engines, such as Google and Microsoft's Bing, to remove inadequate or irrelevant information from web results appearing under searches for people's names -- dubbed the "right to be forgotten." Google complied, but it only scrubbed results across its European websites such as Google.de in Germany and Google.fr in France, arguing that to do otherwise would set a dangerous precedent on the territorial reach of national laws. The French regulator, the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes (CNIL), fined Google 100,000 euros ($112,150.00) in March for not delisting more widely, arguing that was the only way to uphold Europeans' right to privacy. The company filed its appeal of the CNIL's order with France's supreme administrative court, the Council of State. "One nation does not make laws for another," said Dave Price, senior product counsel, Google. "Data protection law, in France and around Europe, is explicitly territorial, that is limited to the territory of the country whose law is being applied." Google's Transparency Report indicates the company accepts around 40 percent of requests for the removal of links appearing under search results for people's names.

6 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. US disagrees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    interestingly the country google is from completely disagrees with googles stance as they regularly make laws and rulings around data beyond its borders

    1. Re: US disagrees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The censorship practice that is commonly called "right to be forgotten" is not mandated by data protection laws. Otherwise there wouldn't need to be a special law about it, and also the original web pages would have to be censored, not just the search results. TFA contradicts you in that it speaks of information that is "inadequate or irrelevant", not of personal data that would fall under data protection.

      If you agree with the EU's cynical interpretation of "Libertés", what about other jurisdictions? Shouldn't Iran's and China's rules about what is deemed inadequate or irrelevant also be respected worldwide? If not why not?

    2. Re: US disagrees by silentcoder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not to mention, as I recall (and memory could be faulty) the original court case that led to this law in the first place - was brought by somebody who was entirely innocent of the bad behavior which was showing up in a google search from a defamation piece false written by a third party. If I recall he was also suing said aleged defamer but I don't know the outcome of that case.

      The point is - not everything that is on the net about your is automatically relevant or useful information, much of it may not even have a shred of truth to it. Look at the many cases world wide of people having their credit records ruined because some credit agency confused them with somebody else who just happens to have the same name. We even had a case here in my country where it happened to an airforce intelligence officer. Those guys are literally legally prohibited from ever having bad debts - it would create too much of an incentive for things like bribery andyou seriously do not want high-level military personnel who handle classified data to be easily tempted people. But a credit agency confused him with somebody else, from the opposite end of the country who had the same name and a bunch of bad debts. Took years to clear his record. Cases like that happen all the time.

        There are plenty of perfectly legitimate times when what information is available about you could be utterly false. The EU's laws in this regard are addressing a very real problem that seriously impacts on citizens liberty and lives - the only thing wrong about these laws is that they do not have equivalents in EVERY free country like the seriously ought to.

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  2. Re:Radical idea: My data is NOT google's property by Zandamesh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google just links to the information, they don't remove it. Why does none of this responsibility to preserve privacy fall on the shoulders of people who host it in the first place? I'll tell you why, because it's too much of a hassle to go after each of the ones hosting the info, so they go after Google, mainly because it's easier. But the information does not go away, and if people really have an interest about searching about people, alternatives will become available. Especially because technology is constantly improving, how long until every newspaper ever written fits on a single hard disk? This law to censor Google will soon become obsolete but it won't be removed because that would be too much of a hassle as well.

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  3. Re:Radical idea: My data is NOT google's property by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Google just links to the information, they don't remove it. Why does none of this responsibility to preserve privacy fall on the shoulders of people who host it in the first place? I'll tell you why, because it's too much of a hassle to go after each of the ones hosting the info, so they go after Google, mainly because it's easier. .

    No this is not why, you haven't understood the purpose and intent of this law at all. It is specifically *not* to remove the original information, in any way or form. But to address the problem that casual searches on Google will forever re-surface old stories about you that should be left to the obscurity of the original stories and not continue to ruin your life when no longer relevant. You can agree or disagree if this is a good purpose, but at least try to understand the purpose before attacking it with something that is completely irrelevant to this law.

  4. Re:Open letter by oobayly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What are they doing wrong? They're obeying a local law. France wants its laws to apply outside of their borders. Imagine their reaction if Saudi Arabia demanded that they repeal their ban on face covering in public places.