German court rules in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation
blog.wikimedia.org
blog.wikimedia.org
yes, the data's available from other sources, but a prospective employer might not see that until after evaluating some other aspects of her work, and end up hiring her in a situation in which they wouldn't if they found her age immediately
for that matter, i find wikimedia's prominent display of age for people in general to be a bit too forceful. is that really such a defining characteristic of a living person that it belongs in the highlight box ?
https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+25%22 https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+26%22 https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+27%22 https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+28%22 https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+29%22 https://www.google.com/#q=%22said+smith%2C+30%22
Consider how well the adoption of the Occlusion Method would work -- or rather, be received -- if applied to any other common adjective to discrimination. (Gender, (lack of) religion, race, redheadedness, etc)
To be clear, I don't think trying to keep your age a secret is an effective way to either a) keep your age a secret, or b) decrease the prevalence of age discrimination.
> for that matter, i find wikimedia's prominent display of age for people in general to be a bit too forceful. is that really such a defining characteristic of a living person that it belongs in the highlight box ?
Who knows. It's two characters, though, that are easily skimmed over when reading, and presumably enough people find the information useful to warrant its presence.
The German Wikipedia is published and maintained by a US entity, there's a local German Wikimedia chapter but it's not the publisher of the German Wikipedia. The article says that they sued the US entity (the Wikimedia Foundation Inc., not Wikimedia Deutschland), but doesn't explain this issue.
Usually the resort has been that local countries have threatened local editors living in those countries, e.g. there was a famous case with the French government threatening someone living in France who was writing about French nuclear communication outposts on the French Wikipedia (published in the U.S.).
Granted, for Wikimedia there would be less at stake than for, say, Facebook, but it should be obvious why an organization offering a localized service might be interested in staying within the bounds of the laws of whatever locale they are targeting.
I doubt Wikimedia Deutschland would fare well if their US-based parent organisation disregarded rulings of German courts, especially when it comes to protecting the privacy of German citizens.
Compare it to, say, US courts suing a EU or Chinese company. Sure, they don't necessarily have any means to enforce the ruling against the foreign company but it would likely be in the company's best interests to follow the ruling if they want to continue providing their services in the US.
> I doubt Wikimedia Deutschland would fare well
> if their US-based parent organisation disregarded
> rulings of German courts.
Even if the heat was turned up on Wikimedia Deutschland as a result of something like this they'd be unable to dictate what goes into their language editions of Wikipedia. The local chapters simply have nothing to do with the editorial policy.
There are plenty of German speakers who edit Wikipedia who live outside of Germany, some even live in the U.S. Is a German court ruling going to decide whether a German speaker living in the U.S. can insert factual information into a U.S.-hosted encyclopedia article about some subject pertinent to Germany?
The entire legal framework around this sort of thing is based on the assumption of locally published paper media, and it's really interesting to see how these cases are treated in the Internet age where it's not a case of local publishing in your country, but your citizens fetching foreign-published information over international boundaries.
So I'm genuinely curious to know what their standing in the case was considered to be.
This is to ensure a somewhat level playing field, since the consumer is usually the weaker party. I would argue that, even though it's not a consumer vs. company lawsuit the situation is comparable and it's fair to empower her with the choice of venue. I also don't see it as an unreasonable burden to consider the legal situation in Germany when you're publishing information about a German citizen, in German. This isn't some Pakistani court imposing sharia law on HBO because people could possibly watch it in Karachi if they have the right VPN.
The alternative interpretation of some of these comments is that basically no law should apply to the internet. Even though I have some sympathy for the techno-anarcho mindset (fuck that stupid cookie regulation!), I would argue that if anything that happens online has any power, that power requires checks that go beyond 'might is right'. And even acknowledging all their faults, I haven't come across a better method than a democratically legitimated court of law.
(Having said all that: she lost, the system is working).
I think some things are being lost in translation in this article, but generally speaking in many European privacy laws you can argue that something that's private information is in the public interest, or you can argue that it's not really private, either because the subject is a public person, or that it's a generally well-known fact.
I think it's really a stretch to maintain that your birthyear is private information if you're a screenwriter/director who has a self-authored book saying what year you were born in. Your birthyear is public information at that point by any reasonable definition.
1. http://www.amazon.com/Tradition-lyrischen-Hofmannsthal-unive...
The point of these sorts of laws "public persona" laws is not that we all desperately need to know trivia like George Clooney's natural hair color or what year Evelyn Schels was born, but rather that when you insert yourself into the public sphere you're free game for the public press because it's in the public's interest do know who you are and what you represent.
The press is one of the fundamental pillars of any functioning democracy, and if you can't write a basic article about some public personality without mentioning how old they are or other pertinent personal attributes without fear of legal retribution you've enacted a major barrier to public discourse.
Some of the public are interested in up skirt shots of pop starlets you see the difference here?
You might want to look up what an inverse metaphor is before jumping in with both feet
> The court recognized that a birth year made accessible by the Claimant herself through publicly available sources such as a book “would not remain limited to a small circle of people … but be accessible to a circle of users unlimited in theory.”
While I would maintain that "available to the general public" doesn't equal "available to everyone" (info on the web is more likely widely available than info in a print book) I agree with the court in that her claim against Wikimedia is invalid in this case.