EU Court to Rule On 'Right to Be Forgotten' Outside Europe (wsj.com)

The European Union's top court is set to decide whether the bloc's "right to be forgotten" policy stretches beyond Europe's borders, a test of how far national laws can -- or should -- stretch when regulating cyberspace. From a report: The case stems from France, where the highest administrative court on Wednesday asked the EU's Court of Justice to weigh in on a dispute between Alphabet's Google and France's privacy regulator over how broadly to apply the right (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternative source), which allows EU residents to ask search engines to remove some links from searches for their own names. At issue: Can France force Google to apply it not just to searches in Europe, but anywhere in the world? The case will set a precedent for how far EU regulators can go in enforcing the bloc's strict new privacy law. It will also help define Europe's position on clashes between governments over how to regulate everything that happens on the internet -- from political debate to online commerce. France's regulator says enforcement of some fundamental rights -- like personal privacy -- is too easily circumvented on the borderless internet, and so must be implemented everywhere. Google argues that allowing any one country to apply its rules globally risks upsetting international law and, when it comes to content, creates a global censorship race among autocrats.

Comments

Re:Ask Slashdot:

[tlhIngan]

The whole approach to this is screwed up. Why is Google in the middle of it? The correct approach is to bring the person complaining and the website hosting into court and come to a decision. If the decision is to prevent listing in search engines, then modify the site's robot.txt to stop any search engine from indexing the page. In the current messed up situation Google has become judge, jury and executer for the decision. In my opinion that is abdication of governmental responsibility. It is the judicial's responsibility to interpret these laws, not some panel of Google employees. Google on'y responsibility should be to respect the directives in the robot.txt.

Here's the facts about the "Right to be Forgotten".

First off, it only applies to search engines. It doesn't apply to content. It is assumed content posted is truthful and correct.

Secondly, it is there so certain searches of your name do not show up. For example, perhaps 10 years ago you were arrested for something, but was never charged and thus innocent. The right to be forgotten means if someone Googles you, that charge no longer shows up in the search results. It may show up in a different search, which is fine, but a casual Googling of someone should not reveal something that has no legal status on you - you were innocent.

This can apply since it is true you were arrested. However, it is also true that you were never charged with an offense, so the fact you were arrested really means nothing. Unfortunately, most records do not say that you were not charged in the end.

So the Right to be Forgotten means that you can expunge the arrest link from your search result because it is information that is not useful to anyone - it was years ago. It would be a damn shame to keep paying your dues for something that you never was charged with, in the end.

Another case is where someone was arrested, charged and went to jail. But they served their time, reformed and became a productive member of society. Again, someone Googling should not need to know this since it's old news

As more and more records come online, this could mean you're paying repeatedly for stuff you did in the past. It's not fair to you to have it stay easily searchable, but it's not fair to simply remove all evidence.

Re:What "Right to be Forgotten"?

[AmiMoJo]

The right to be forgotten applies to businesses storing and using personal data. It doesn't apply to you.

The right is very real. Companies like Google have respected it, courts have enforced it.