Dutch Surgeon Wins Landmark 'Right To Be Forgotten' Case (theguardian.com)

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: A Dutch surgeon formally disciplined for her medical negligence has won a legal action to remove Google search results about her case in a landmark "right to be forgotten" ruling. The doctor's registration on the register of healthcare professionals was initially suspended by a disciplinary panel because of her postoperative care of a patient. After an appeal, this was changed to a conditional suspension under which she was allowed to continue to practice. But the first results after entering the doctor's name in Google continued to be links to a website containing an unofficial blacklist, which it was claimed amounted to "digital pillory." It was heard that potential patients had found the blacklist on Google and discussed the case on a web forum. The surgeon's lawyer, Willem van Lynden, said the ruling was groundbreaking in ensuring doctors would no longer be judged by Google on their fitness to practice. "Now they will have to bring down thousands of pages: that is what will happen, in my view. There is a medical disciplinary panel but Google have been the judge until now. They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.

Comments

Bullshit. It's a shot at ignorant Americans.

[denzacar]

This "bring down thousands of pages" line is a shot at bullshiting ignorant Americans (and maybe Brits too) - cause Netherlands is a civil law country.

As such, one ruling of a court is nothing but one ruling by that court.
It changes no laws, nor does it affect other cases anywhere in the land. Or the world.
A precedent will get you no more than a cup of coffee. Provided you have the money to pay for it.

See... Most of the world DOES NOT use a legal system created for illiterate lords who've inherited their lands from their illiterate dead parents, along with the job to dispense justice to local peasants.
Nor the legal system which came out of that one, only now judges were illiterate local strongmen with guns, somewhere out on the "frontier".
A system where a "hanging judge" makes the law, the rest of the state be damned.
Most of the world thinks that's kinda stupid.

https://www.economist.com/the-...

Although common-law systems make extensive use of statutes, judicial cases are regarded as the most important source of law, which gives judges an active role in developing rules.
For example, the elements needed to prove the crime of murder are contained in case law rather than defined by statute.
To ensure consistency, courts abide by precedents set by higher courts examining the same issue.

In civil-law systems, by contrast, codes and statutes are designed to cover all eventualities and judges have a more limited role of applying the law to the case in hand.
Past judgments are no more than loose guides.
When it comes to court cases, judges in civil-law systems tend towards being investigators, while their peers in common-law systems act as arbiters between parties that present their arguments.

Oh an BTW...
If the "law firm" is called MediaMaze and if it specializes in "Online reputation management", "Online PR" and "right to be forgotten"...
It's a PR firm.
And they are selling their spiel, hoping that either someone at Google will fall for it - or for free publicity for themselves, and possibly some illiterate potential clients from the US and UK.