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Google Appeals French Order For Global 'Right To Be Forgotten' (reuters.com)
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.
interestingly the country google is from completely disagrees with googles stance as they regularly make laws and rulings around data beyond its borders
It seems like countries are increasingly demanding that corporations follow their laws globally. It's inevitable that we'll increasingly have laws in two countries that are mutually exclusive, but those countries will want their laws followed globally. A corporation doing business in those two countries has no choice but to either leave at least one country or break the law in at least one of the countries. What do you do in that situation?
The "right to be forgotten" involves the removal of personal information. However, what happens if a French citizen requests they be forgotten by Google while US investigators are looking into that same person on suspicion of terrorism and have a court order demanding preservation of the data? Which set of laws do you obey?
The premise of the question is simple. But the consequences and answers are anything but simple.
The letter from the authorities to Google that complained about Google not complying with the court order specifically used the example that users in France searching on Google.com instead of Google.fr get a result where the right to be forgotten is not implemented.
Google is trying to call .com a global only search result, but that is disingenuous, both they and all others already do geo-fencing and geo-tailoring on what is served through a "global" .com domain.
Wrong. Italy routinely makes laws that are meant to be valid all throughout the universe. They just lack the firepower to enforce them.
Screw you, troll. This doesn't involve US laws. It involves a multinational company headquartered in the US that's not following EU laws. Lots of countries try to extend their laws beyond their borders, and in some cases it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't. The new EU data protection directive is much more aggressive in extending the rules beyond EU borders.
Let's say a US citizen travels to Canada and is injured from staying at a hotel in Canada. Because it's a multinational hotel chain with a presence in the US and the injured person is a US resident, they would potentially sue for damages in US courts. The case will be heard in the US, but the US court will interpret Canadian law in its ruling. Why? Because the hotel has no obligation to follow US laws in Canada, even when the guest is a US citizen. In this case, Canadian laws effectively extend beyond the border in the sense that they are what the US court ends up interpreting. In fact, sometimes US laws actually require that US courts interpret foreign laws.
The consequence of this will probably be that european countries will prohibit exporting data which might fall under its privacy laws, as it won't be able to enforce those laws on data outside its territory. I'd also be somewhat amused if they'd have the idea to "license" the data and revoke the license if the data is used in a way contradicting local laws (i.e. "you don't own the data you gather in this country, we just grant you a license to use it under certain conditions for a potentially limited amount of time").
Dear Google,
How about you stop hiding behind the laws and your highly paid lawyers and actually do something that's right for a change?
You know, 'Do no evil'. Yes it was always a bullshit slogan, and you've been doing evil ever since the beginning, but here's your chance to stop acting like a complete asshole and recognise when you've gone to far, whether or not the letter of the law in your favourite jurisdiction says otherwise.
So, Google, how about you clean up your act, and be the good guys for a change?
Sincerely,
The Rest of the Fucking Internet.
...it becomes an American company again?
I sure wish they took the same view come tax time.
EU is making laws for Google, not for other countries. If you want to keep operating there, play by their rules.
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.
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
Wrong question. The question is, will anyone know you have these logs. If the answer is "no", it doesn't matter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
The law is NOT being enforced externally at all. Nobody on the ECJ is going to give Google any grief if they ignore a request by me to be forgotten - I'm not a European citizen and my country does not have such a right.
But Google has to comply with the laws of the countries it operates in, in so far as it concerns data about people from those countries. By Google's reasoning, if you kidnap somebody and take them to a country where kidnapping is legal - you cannot be prosecuted ? Their right not to be kidnapped dissappeared after you took them to a country that doesn't recognize it ? Of course not. They are still citizens from a country where that is a right - and their government still has a duty to protect that right, even if they are not currently within it's borders.
I see no reasonable reason why a person's data should be any different.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Ha! America doesn't like being told what to do by the EU but thinks the UK should be subjected to rule by the unelected EU overlords.
>Are corporations so big they can play off one jurisdiction against another to do whatever they want?
Yes. A great many of them are. Which effectively makes them entirely lawless organisations - and that's exactly why corporations can be far more dangerous than governments. Governments all have to answer to somebody, even the dictators end up answering to other governments (too much bad press and you end up with UN soldiers showing up to "relieve you of duty"). Corporations only answer to shareholders - none of whom single-handedly holds enough sway for any moral concerns to influence behavior and can and do commit any atrocity that can somehow save or make them money - by simply going somewhere it's legal to do.
The only way you will end that is if governments start saying "If you do business here you must comply with our laws EVERYWHERE, otherwise you are free to NOT do business here". But that will never happen, and I'm not sure the trade-off is worth it as there would be nothing stopping Iran and North Korea from doing the same.
It may be worth allowing for certain very narrow legal areas - like labour law and tax law, provided we put in place enough checks and balances to prevent scope creep.
Currently - corporations are the most brutal and murderous entities on the planet but VERY recently that title belonged to governments. We do need to take care that our response to the current problem does not aggravate the former one. It's not like governments ever got LESS brutal, corporations just managed to overtake them.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I demand that this failure to get first post be forgotten.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Also, those places would include news outlets, which would me a much more obvious hit to freedom of the press. (With Google we can engage in the great doublethink that we aren't censoring the press, we're just making it impossible to find some of the content the press produces.)
Why does none of this responsibility to preserve privacy fall on the shoulders of people who host it in the first place?
Actually it does. Any business handling personal data has to abide by data protection rules.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you pointed out it's easier to go after Google. If they tried to force the sources of the information to remove it they would probably wind up in numerous court fights as well as run afoul of press freedom laws making it impractical to take that course. So the "right to be forgotten" becomes the "right to make it harder to find out."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
If Alphabet wins.. they are saying that "information" taken from one nation and stored in another deserves no protection once outside it's boarders.
Assange couldn't be prosecuted if this prevails (yes, I know that it's only a secret grand jury at the moment) because https://wikileaks.com/ is physically outside of the US and US laws don't apply? In that case wikileaks would only need to install a region filter to demonstrate "token" compliance. Now, if he was somehow kidnapped and found himself on US soil he would be in trouble.
Lets hope in this case the mega corporation wins... which could be a limited victory for everybody.
it's been rainy here by the Beach
Almost half of the items in my /. feed are related to Google. That's a bit much.
Does the same law apply to books? Do we go and hunt down books that recorded the events of people and throw them away? Or is search an easy target because they just have to email a request..
Google doesn't claim "ownership" over information about you; they simply provide a link to information that is already on the web. The search results will disappear as soon as the original pages disappear. If you have a problem with that, you need to take it up with the people who put the information on the web in the first place, not Google.
Secondly, the information that is at issue in "right to be forgotten" cases usually isn't "personal" information, it's public information: legal judgments against you, articles others have written about you, etc. You don't own that information and you shouldn't be able to control it, even according to the EU and proponents of the "right to be forgotten", because they don't force the original publishers of that information to take it down.
Which tells you that the information covered by the "right to be forgotten" is, in fact, not personal data, because otherwise the original site would have to safeguard it.
Yes, you are.
The protection information receives outside its borders is determined by jurisdiction and international agreements. There are agreements on copyrights and extradition. There is no general law or principle about "protection of information". Furthermore, Google search results don't "take information", they merely link to a source in whatever country the information resides in.
Assange can be prosecuted in the US if he violated a US law, and if his offense is an extraditable offense under a treaty with a nation that he happens to reside in, then that nation would extradite him.
The biggest problem with censorship is that at its fundamental level, it is an attempt to control what people will know or believe, (since what information they are being allowed to access in the first place is controlled), and is an attempt to try and legislate what kinds of things people are even allowed to *THINK* about.
Nobody, no agency, no authority, no government, absolutely no power absolutely anywhere has any right to decide what any other human being should be allowed to think. Period.
While it certainly may suck if somebody makes an unfair decision about you because you did something spectacularly stupid or wrong a long time ago when that person is too narrow minded to consider how much time has actually elapsed since it occurred, but in the end that decision is still on them. Unfair shit happens to everybody in this world... heck, half of the people in this world are starving to death, and somebody living in a privileged nation thinks its unfair that an employer won't hire them because of some stupid shit that went down over a decade ago? It doesn't fucking matter whose fault it is when bad stuff happens to any us, it is still that person's individual responsibility to deal with it... and to continue to be the best person that they know how to be, and blaming past mistakes or blaming the fact that other people might not forgive us for them to justify why we aren't being better is just acting like a fucking crybaby. People who do so need to grow the hell up, act like adults, and and take responsibility for their OWN lives in the here and the now, instead of letting what people might believe about them dictate what choices they make.
(huff, puff, huff, puff, huff, puff.. Well, that turned into more of a rant than I first thought it would).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Since google.com is a service that is available in France, then it is also under French regulations
If google only want to apply the constraint on google.fr , ok , then they have to deactivated access to google.com
This is not censorship, people, this is only personal data protection.
We didn't whip the ass of dictatorship to let anything but the first amendment set the rules of the digital high seas, any more than we let local thugs send out pirate ships to international waters to harass trade there.
From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Normandeeeeeeee
We will fight our country's battles
On the land or in the tubes!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They also go after google because it's the main source of headaches for people with dated/inaccurate/slanderous information out there about them.
Consider: If you publish a web-site attacking me as the world's biggest jerk, it only really matters if people can find it. It's sort of the same way you can slander someone in the forest and never get sued. Slander is still actionable when spoken in a forest, but since nobody is around to hear it, witness it, and testify in court to the slander, you're pretty much in the clear. (Also, because nobody heard the slander, there wasn't any real damage done.)
But it's the same notion here: When it comes to slanderous, out of date, or just plain false information, Google operates like a white pages for slander. Which is why they're the target of the laws.
Who did what now?
"The right to be forgotten" desperately needs a name change, since what it technically means is so radically different from what it plainly says or describes through its words. Its advocates should start calling it the "right to not be mentioned" or something like that, so that people can clearly see that it's merely about limiting speech rather than thought.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
France doesn't have jurisdiction over Google in the US; all they have jurisdiction over is Google's French subsidiary.
So, in effect, France is trying to fine Google France for actions committed by the owner of Google France outside of France. If France wants to set that precedent, they are welcome to it; I suspect it will strongly discourage future investment in France and French companies.
Play by who's rules where? Companies like Google dodge tax all over the world equally, that doesn't magically mean they need to obey only the laws of the country in which they pay tax.
EU is making laws for Google, not for other countries. If you want to keep operating there, play by their rules.
EU is making laws full stop. What laws the EU makes should have no effect on an American company doing business in Australia for example.
Almost fully agree with you. (your reference about links excludes knowledge of cache data provided by Time Machine)
We just appear to have problems with conceding jurisdiction as frequently as we claim it. There is a reason why the US has never agreed to fully support the ICC, the 1% who benefit from the immunity, and layered delays to prosecution will never be held accountable.
How long (based on treaties, international law, etc.. ) do cases like "megaupload.com" take to wind through the courts?
"Google search results don't "take information", they merely link to a source in whatever country the information resides in."
Isn't that what "time machine" does? It makes a copy of information and keeps it along with the original url. I just read an opinion where "time machine" cache information would be admissible as evidence in a wide variety of situations.
Apparently none of the direct replies to my comment were based on what what I wrote, so I'm ignoring them, but I feel like I should agree with the person who commented on targeting google as the publicity agent for bad information. My point was the bad information should be the target, not google, even though google is doing plenty of EVIL stuff these days.
As regards google not having direct 'ownership' of the personal data, that person apparently doesn't know how google works and also ignores the question of caches. My suggestion would actually make it much harder for google to update its indexes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
"Casual" searches? Is it explicitly mentioned as such, and is a definition given of 'casual'? I highly doubt it. There is no clear line between 'casually' looking it up and 'non-casually' looking it up on google.
So that point doesn't matter, and thus, it amounts to: "to not show the original info". Period. And then we come to your primary assertion: that it's ok since it doesn't remove it, it only doesn't show it, so you can't find it, at least not with a search-engine.
Now... for me, and I think I can make a logical case for it, this amounts to simply diverting and obfuscating the actual result of this. It is, in fact, a semantic way in deluding someone it's something else, while it amounts to the same. Because, let's face it, if you can't find any info, it amounts the same to no *having* that info. Maybe not in the strict sense, but certainly in a de facto sense.
It's like... making a law which forbid to read books. And then saying: "Oh, but we did NOT forbid books! We just forbid to *READ* books."
That might be an important distinction to you, but not to me (nor most other people with a rationally thinking mind, I wager). Because forbidding *READING* books has the same effect as forbidding books themselves, and they loose all intent and purpose, since the whole point of books is being able to be read. The same goes for information on the internet; if you're not able to find the information, than that information could as well be considered non-existent, and there is no de facto difference anymore between deleting all findings, and deleting the info itself.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---