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.

Comments

US disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re: US disagrees

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re: US disagrees

[locofungus]

The censorship practice that is commonly called "right to be forgotten" is not mandated by data protection laws.

I am not a lawyer and I don't understand all the nuances around this but actually, in Europe, this is (apparently) mandated.

*Any* collection of personal information into a database is covered by data protection laws. *Any* european citizen can request a report of all the information held on them (subject to some exclusions that probably wouldn't apply to google) for a capped fee. *Any* citizen can request that incorrect information is corrected (again there are some exceptions where it's only necessary to note that the citizen disputes the item) and *any* citizen can request that any information held on them should be deleted unless it's continuing holding is necessary (for example, billing information for a continuing subscription, necessary regulatory regulations regarding data retention etc)

This is complicated by the fact that the highest European court did give a ruling that some of these regulations don't apply to search engines (a ruling that I approve of). Prior to that ruling it could have been argued that google was breaking the law just by building its search database as it should have obtained explicit permission from each person to collect any information on them at all.

Eventually this will get pushed up to the highest courts in Europe and they will clarify what the current law actually means with regards to search engines.

After that there will probably still be arguments about what is right and wrong but pretty much the only way it will change is if the EU states can get together and agree a European wide change to the law (For this particular type of treaty I don't know if it would be majority or unanimity that would be required.)

It should also be noted that many of the requirements of data protection laws in Europe come from treaty but the individual laws are set at a national level - i.e. the treaty says what must be allowed or prohibited but the individual nations are responsible for writing laws into their books that enforce the treaty. So sometimes a national law might gold plate a european treaty - so the EU courts might find that the French law is legal in EU land but not required or they might find that the French law is illegally overbroad and will have to change or, indeed, they might find that French law is deficient in failing to protect some right.

The British government (of all persuasions) is a great fan of gold plating EU regulations, either in rhetoric when they want to beat on Europe or in law when they want an excuse to pass some new draconian legislation. "Europe made us do it" when what they mean is "Europe required us to change the law but didn't require this law which is a superset of what Europe required"

Re: US disagrees

[silentcoder]

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.

Re:US disagrees

[oobayly]

Is it illegal for French people to call somebody abroad and find out the information? Or is it just this new fangled thing called the internet?

So the moment a tech company has to obey EU laws

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Re:Radical idea: My data is NOT google's property

[Zandamesh]

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.

Re:Simple question

[silentcoder]

> 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?

No problem. There is nothing in the right to be forgotten that requires Google to delete data, it only needs to delete the data PUBLICLY. Remove it from search results, nobody will check if they deleted the entry from the database or just flagged it for "do not display".

It's a ridiculously easy problem to solve.

But it's interesting how your basic assumption begs the question: what the fuck makes you think US investigators have the right to investigate somebody in another country ? He is NOT subject to their authority. Unless he commits a crime IN the US they have no right to be doing that investigation in the first place. If he does, their right ends when he crosses the border and they are supposed to hand the investigation over to Interpol and work with the authorities in the country the person is in now through this interpol. If the person was planning a terrorist attack in another country, then the authority to investigate him lies EXCLUSIVELY with the law enforcement of that country. You bet your ass no sane court would grant a right-to-be-forgotten request if it's opposed by legitimate law enforcement. US investigators do not have the right to investigate non-US citizens who are not currently in the US. We didn't vote for the US government, we get no say in your laws and we are not required to comply with them and your investigators have no right to so much as know our names. We have our OWN investigators thank you very much and we will investigate and prosecute our own criminals.
No country has yet invited the FBI to come investigate their criminals for them and no country is likely to ever do so. Countries do sometimes invite highly successful investigators from other countries (the FBI is frequently one) to come TRAIN their local investigators and bring some of those skills across, but the authority to USE them belongs to the local government. The US government's authority to do anything ends at your own borders and it's high time Americans figure that out.

Unfirst post

[wonkey_monkey]

I demand that this failure to get first post be forgotten.

Re:Open letter

[oobayly]

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.

Re:Radical idea: My data is NOT google's property

[ooloorie]

If owning another person's personal information without their permission was a crime

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.