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Comment by karmajunkie | Hacker News Reader

What if the problem is not that society hasn't adjusted to this new space we call the Internet, but that the people in charge of the internet (or rather, the things on it) haven't figured out yet that they still bear some obligation to the rest of the world?

To use your example, whether I put up a website or a billboard with defamatory information is irrelevant. We have laws that protect us, which declare that defamatory speech is not protected. Why does it matter that the speech is online or not when considering the essence of the law? As you stated, if you put up a billboard they can find you and sue you for defamation. Why shouldn't the same be possible online? If I get an injunction against a billboard with defamatory speech the owner of the billboard is required to take it down. Why shouldn't an online provider be equally obligated?

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Except, in this case, the article isn't defamatory. It correctly depicts actions of genuine public interest that happened. The only argument to remove them is that they are old. I'd also note that the website itself is still up, containing the article in its entirety.

It's not entirely clear to me that there's no defamation going on.

Does running an add linking to the article for anyone interested in that person's name count as defamation? And if so, why would it be different if google chose included it prominently amongst the search results?

I'm not entirely convinced that this should count as defamation, but there is room for debate.

Information has to be false for it to be defamation, it's in the definition. The news article they are trying to de-list does not contain false information.

It doesn't have to be false for it to be defamatory. It has to be intended to ruin someone's reputation in an unwarranted manner.

Not in any legal jurisdiction I'm aware of, and certainly not the EU Courts. Truth is an absolute defense against defamation.

Truth is an absolute defense, except when its not.

http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/truth-and-defamation/

If anybody, I think the provider, not the search engine should be obligated.

He should be, but in many cases it's just not doable, because governments are local and the Internet is global. I think it should be accepted as a fact. So maybe we need some rethinking. Maybe banning books was never a good idea, even if ideas presented there seemed dangerous, inconvenient and sometimes plainly false.

To me the situation looks like this: A goes to the police station to report that B has stolen something. They are fully aware that there is no chance they can catch B, so they arrest A.

I'm not saying that there is no problem, just that the solution they have chosen is worse than lack of any action.

In your analogy it's more like A is a fence who made money off of stolen goods from B and is acting like they have no responsibility for being part of the transaction. If this was some non profit or a person collecting the information as a hobby it might be a different argument, but these are for profit companies making this available.

Whether or not you think that should be allowed, you cant pretend that the search engines are not responsible in some part for the process being possible

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