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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.
If the EU laws work outside Europe, won't China'a laws work outside of China? Why pay for the big firewall, they could just demand removal of all "objectionable" content! Be careful what you wish for....
If this goes through, it'll be a precedent for everybody.
Yes and No.
If Saudi Arabia demands all pictures of the prophet Mohammed be taken off all google image searches- google will just not operate in Saudi Arabia. It's not a big enough market for google to worry about making the rest of the world angry- and they would have to respect Singapore saying no images of the royal family- and Bahrain saying don't insult the sheik... and... the internet becomes a censored mess.
If the republic of Ireland demands google show all search pages in Gaelic all around the world... again, I can't see google complying- they'll just step out of Ireland.
If the United States or the EU ask google to stop tracking certain things or remove some insignificant data they have... google may want to do as they say because those blocks as a whole make up a large amount of income.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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.
Seems like saying "You have a right" to something is useless if it's foiled by geography of the internet.
If you have a right to free speech in the US, but your Chinese made computer and phone started automatically censoring you from criticizing the Chinese government or Foxconn, even in the US, I'm guessing we wouldn't be quibbling about issues of borders. You'd chuck your equipment out the window and buy new stuff of course, but if that somehow weren't an option (as it's not here), your next thought should be demanding the government do something to protect your rights.
Slashdotters seem unconcerned with the privacy rights of Europe. Maybe it's jealousy that we clearly aren't going to be granted that right, so fuck them and their slightly more citizen-friendly government? Maybe we just prefer to look down our noses and guffaw about "These idiots just don't get it!" That's fun I guess. But it doesn't strike me as insane on it's face, it's a good principle I support, and I don't get much kicks out of pretending I'm superior or jealousy. So I hope Europe figures out a way to enforce it.
Seems like this might be a prelude, figuring out if you do have that right, and they'll get into the technical details later which may or may not be possible. We aren't able to prevent 100% of the murders anywhere ever, but it's still a good idea to say "don't murder people." Establishing a legal right to be forgotten even if it's a company based overseas, I'm guessing the burden would be on citizens to sue, and courts to then determine if they were able to sue in that case?
I have no legal training in europe or anywhere else, IANAL, this is not a legal brief you are reading. Not sure why slashdotters always need to be reminded posts here aren't couched in legal brief language, but this is a disclaimer this is not. I don't care what the legal definition in Brussels is of "rights," I think it's pretty clear what I mean.
The whole right to be forgotten thing is asinine to begin with.
It doesn't remove any of the source information - it just makes it harder to find - and makes the net less useful.
USACorp is the best in trying to apply US laws in other countries. That's why we are stuck with FBI (which has no juridiction) on DVDs and DMCA take down notices are being sent across the world.
US has a handful of cases looking to do the same thing
A handful? The US is world champion in extending judgements beyond its jurisdiction. They invented the practice.
Have you ever been to Toronto? They actually have plainclothes police that go to public places and listen for people to make off-color jokes or talk about Islamic terrorism in order to fine them. Literally, if you express an opinion that is negative about an "identifiable group", you've broken the law there. It's so bad that people now have to self-censor even when they're just having a casual talk with their friends. Comedians and other entertainers also have to make really dull jokes there as well.
Why do I use the word Gestapo? Because this is EXACTLY the kind of environment that one would have experienced in Nazi Germany.
That's assuming, of course, that anybody would be insane enough to actually want to go to Toronto to begin with.
Captcha: idealism
Need I remind you that there's currently a German citizen, in New Zealand, without any ties to the US, having his assets frozen on behalf of a charge and conviction in absentia of a US court?
Cry me a river about other countries overstepping their jurisdiction.
What is this "right to be forgotten"? I don't think, it exists — or ever existed — nor should exists. My memories, what I have seen, heard, and otherwise experienced are mine, however and wherever I recorded it.
Suppose, technology allowed (wait, it already does!) to carefully erase human memories — would it suddenly become your right to demand, for example, your ex submits to wiping out his memories of your time together?
Would it be Ok for employers to wipe out the memories employees may have associated with the employment upon its termination?
There is no such "right", we all better stop pretending it exists.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
How is it going to be enforced? Court ruling is useless wihout instruments to make it work.
I can only see things going one way: ultimately, it's just the same as China's governmental firewall and other countries that demands companies to have special filters and special rules put in place to operate inside the country. And that only affects Internet access inside the country, it cannot and will not be enforced anywhere else by some sheer will and bravado.
If the data that is supposed to be erased is lying outside France or the EU, they won't be able to do anything without international agreements and a huge ammount of diplomacy.
This is actually worse than what China demands.
And if neither the company nor the country's government it's located at decides to comply, then it goes towards sanctions and whatnot...
which is something I highly doubt any country government would be willing to do for something as controversial as rights of people to demand that content about themselves be erased from servers, or access to it be unlisted from search engines.
And don't get me wrong, I'm all for a privacy pushback, and privacy protection, but this isn't how it's gonna happen. This is bravado. Politicians and judges all around the world are behaving like spoiled brats these days, and it's starting to look really bad.
Just think about it. France is telling us to go after Google because it didn't erase information that our citizens requested from servers located in our country. Fuck that shit. What government is going to comply with something like that without asking something in return? Forget US that obviously has a ton of lobbyists there to dissuade politicians from taking any action, imagine other countries that are far more corrupt, that have more important priorities, and/or don't give a shit about what France or EU wants.
It's quickly becoming too apparent how much inside a magical bubble some politicians and judges seem to live in. Time to wake up, stop wasting time, and put up laws and rulings that have real effects, not just this stream of bullshit that is never going to catch.
Hollywood history strikes again.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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.
This is very different. This case is about the EU trying to suppress search results on Google's servers located in the USA. Google is already suppressing the results on its EU based servers. In the US the First Amendment specifically stop the government from doing something like this. So the EU is trying to get Google to stop doing something in America which is specifically protected in the US Constitution by punishing the EU subsidiaries.
China performs similar censorship. They do it via the Great Firewall. The way China is currently censoring, while unpalatable, it is a reasonable solution under international law.
If the EU enacts this scheme where local subsidiaries are punished to make foreign parts of the company do the EU's bidding, then it won't be long until China starts doing this to foreign companies with Chinese presence. And of course Iran, Myanmar, etc will all pile on too.
If the EU really wants to implement this crazy scheme (which is tilting windmills, like the Brits and porn) then they should build their own version of the Great Firewall and leave the rest of the world alone. Please don't trigger a cascade of these demands into another dozen countries.
And there is no 'right' to be forgotten. The concept is indeed insane. Nobody has a right to erase a memory.
You're confused on the concepts here because of the poetic license taken with "forgotten." We're not talking about erasing memories from human brains, we're talking about removing personal data from the internet. From computers. Why on earth wouldn't a human have the right to have their data removed from the internet? What's so insane about it? I did it just today by deleting a facebook post.
You seem to think this is big government doing something evil rather than government trying to protect rights of citizens from big undemocratic greedy corporations. THAT is insane.
Can I say "Nazis are Great"? If not, you don't have free speech.
You have no right to force anybody to erase those or any references to them.
Oh, well then you better tell the EU court that, because they seem pretty convinced you actually DO.