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Google's link to French privacy fine crashes watchdog's site

theguardian.com

62 pointshepha197961 comments

While I do not always hold Google (et. al.) blameless, sometimes I wonder why companies keep doing business in France given their bureaucracy and knee jerk policies designed to make everything "French" even when it does not make sense.

http://www.frenchtoday.com/blog/learn-some-french-computer-t...

That article you posted is silly.

Regarding the first paragraph: well of course these are going to be literally translated; why would you not translate words like "search engine" or "browser"? Do you want the French to use the actual words "search engine"?

Regarding the second paragraph: actually, most of the words one would put in that category have translations: web (toile), driver (pilote). "wifi" makes sense as it is (as it was coined by an international alliance); "modem" still makes sense in French (modulateur-démodulateur).

Regarding the last paragraph, again, most of these make sense. "Fonts" existed way before computers and thus have a valid French word; "download" was appropriately replaced by "télécharger", from "télé" (distance) and "charger" (load). Again, why would French people use the actual word "download"? The former allows one to guess its meaning even if they have no clue what the concept of downloading is.

There are a couple silly things ("courriel" being one of the few valid complaints, and even then the same argument as for "télécharger" still holds), but overall it's really not crazy that a language would translate words so that they make more sense.

It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin.

I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs?

> It's silly because the words are jargon, and are not supposed to used literally. They might have been coined from some original meaning, but they are just sounds now, and divorced from their origin.

"jargon" just means the words aren't easy for common folk to understand. So the logical conclusion would be that jargon should be translated.

Personally I don't see why "search engine" or "browser" is any different to "fire engine" or "car". They're all just nouns (in fact "fire engine" even varies amongst English speakers as I believe Americans call it "fire truck").

> I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs?

That's another language in itself; albeit a computer based one with English-language origins. You don't see people taking about int64 in common conversation any more than you see English people using French nouns to describe English objects.

> "jargon" just means the words aren't easy for common folk to understand. So the logical conclusion would be that jargon should be translated.

Jargon is a mental shorthand. Instead of explaining the concept you put it in a "box". Then your mind only has to remember the single concept instead of the whole set of sub-concepts that make up the word.

Since a person has a limited number of things you can hold onto at once, by essentially "compressing" concepts you can increase the power of thought.

So the logical conclusion is that jargon should not be translated. It should be left as is. A search engine is not an engine that searches. It's a single "thing".

Except that it's easier to remember a concept if the name for it matches what it is. If I explain to my French grandpa what a search engine is, and tell him it's called a "moteur de recherche", it will all make sense and he will remember both the name and what it is.

On the other hand, if I explain to him what a search engine is, and then tell him it's literally called a "search engine", that's just unnecessary confusion.

I don't agree. Would you find it easier to remember "pasta" by thinking that it's a "salty mass of food"?

Or is an automobile a "self propelled moving machine"?

Are you going to start calling the Mississippi "big river"?

Words have an origin in other languages, certainly. But it serves no purpose to translate that origin as is. Instead you accept the sound of the word and use it.

And presumably hipster is "person who wears clothing low on the hips".

Just because it's technology doesn't except it from the normal rules of words. All new words start from a meaning. But the meaning is interesting historically, it's not used for everyday speech.

If you want to make the word French you don't translate it literally - it's not actually a motor. Call it a "research-majigy" or something like that.

Some poor examples there:

o 'Automobile' is already short for 'self propelled moving machine,

o 'Mississippi' is a proper noun,

o 'hipster' isn't even a proper word (why don't we all just start posting derogatory slang?)

o and if you think of 'salty mass of food' when you eat pastas then you really are shopping in the wrong places / need to learn to cook better.

o As for your dislike of the use of the term 'engine', it's meaning has evolved somewhat, but in software it's common to refer to a complicated core group of routines which powers the software / service as an 'engine'. eg 'game engine' in computer games.

Wow, what I wrote really went over your head. Perhaps my fault? Was I not clear?

> 'Automobile' is already short for 'self propelled moving machine,

Yes, I know. That's what I was telling you. Why are you telling it back to me? Are you suggesting that France should call automobiles "self propelled moving machines"?

> 'Mississippi' is a proper noun

So? It still has an origin. And you can either use the word as is, or translate it.

> 'hipster' isn't even a proper word (why don't we all just start posting derogatory slang?)

Derogatory slag? What? Did you think I was calling someone that? It's just an example of a word. And of course it's a word. It might not be a high status word, but it's still a word.

> and if you think of 'salty mass of food' when you eat pastas then you really are shopping in the wrong places / need to learn to cook better.

That's exactly it. I DON'T think that. But that's what the word "pasta" means. (Perhaps you didn't know that.)

So do you suggest that when France adopt a word for pasta they should call it "salty mass of food"?

Of course not. They should ignore the meaning of the word and just call it pasta. It's the same for technological words.

Your reply really confuses me. Did you just read my post and not the whole thread?

> So? It still has an origin. And you can either use the word as is, or translate it.

"So" I'd already discussed proper nouns.

> Derogatory slag? What? Did you think I was calling someone that? It's just an example of a word. And of course it's a word. It might not be a high status word, but it's still a word.

Made up slang isn't even part of the English language so it seems daft to argue about it's incorporation into other language

> But that's what the word "pasta" means. (Perhaps you didn't know that.)

You're right I didn't know that. And no I don't think France should adopt that term simply because pasta isn't like that these days, we don't think of it like that any longer and arguing that we should readopt medieval terms is the opposite of my point with is that countries should be allowed to adopt their own definitions for modern terms.

Your whole argument in this thread seem to be based on stawman arguments with a minor dash of xenophobia towards foreign languages. You haven't really explained why you think France shouldn't speak their own language aside pointing out some fringe examples and presenting it as evidence that the standard body of modern languages are incomprehensible. Maybe you'd have a better job convincing me if you discussed this from a French perspective as to why French speaking layman's would understand English words better than French word.

*> Your reply really confuses me. Did you just read my post and not the whole thread?

Given a few of your points I'd already addressed earlier in this thread, I don't think you're in a position to be making such comments.

To extend the point made by @GuiA, many technical terms make reference or analagy to non-technical nouns. Imagine if all technical terms were based in a natural language you don't understand. French would be appropriate in this case, but if you speak French then imagine all the words in were in Chinese, or Esperanto, or Klingon. It would be much harder to remember them.

All words are like that. They use the sound from another language, not the meaning.

Go see some of the examples in my reply to him. I could type for hours showing you examples. Just because it's technical doesn't make it special.

Do you call it bokeh or do you try to explain it in English? What about schwa? It has a meaning in its original language after all. But instead you just use the sound from that language. (And I deliberately picked obscure examples.)

How about umami? It's a borrow-word, but in general use we loosely refer to it as "savory" because it is easier for the unacquainted to understand.

I don't really get what's so offensive about the French using a more immediately parse-able term when possible.

We explain it as savory, but we call it umami.

Sure, languages steal words. It makes perfect sense when you're trying to explain something that is a completely new concept, or at least one that has no close analogue already in the language.

The English language didn't have any concept for "the out of focus area of a photograph" so you might as well import that one. But when a language already has a closely related concept it is still much easier to analogize that rather than import a word from another language.

The French already had a word for "search", so why should they ignore that? Perhaps they could have called it an "engine de recherche" but that's just silly. Would you also suggest that they just use the entire phrase "Google Book Search" unchanged, rather than translating the individual words?

> any more than you see English people using French nouns to describe English objects

Oh really? I suppose people don't eat pastries or croissants? They don't send resumes?

That was a really silly thing to say considering just how many French words there are in English.

Of course there's going to be exceptions. I was well aware of that when I made my post. But you're ignoring the fact that those exceptions are generally so old that they harp back to a time when England was conquered thus the invading parties brought their own language or at the time there wasn't an English equivalent description. These days it doesn't happen so often.

Take your examples: pastries is actually an English word that has evolved from a Normandy word 'pastaierie'. And 'croissants' is a very specific term to a specific type of French pastry. So it's not all that surprising that we're going to use the French word since it is a very specific French thing (it may as well be a proper noun it's that niche)

So are you saying that in the past it was OK to use a foreign word, but today they must be translated?

And do you really think those are the only French words in English? How about RSVP? I'm sure there is a huge list if you look.

You said that English would never use a French word, and I've shown you that they do it quite often. And likewise French should not be worried about using English words for things, that's how languages work, they borrow.

> So are you saying that in the past it was OK to use a foreign word, but today they must be translated?

No. I'm saying in the past countries were invaded and the occupiers brought their own language.

> And do you really think those are the only French words in English? How about RSVP? I'm sure there is a huge list if you look.

Oh absolutely. As I said, there are exceptions. But generally what I said is the norm.

Also, RSVP isn't a word.

> You said that English would never use a French word, and I've shown you that they do it quite often.

Oh absolutely. As I said, there are exceptions. But generally what I said is the norm.

It's also worth noting that when foreign words are used in English writing, it's the convention to italicise the words, verbatim ;)

> You said that English would never use a French word, and I've shown you that they do it quite often. And likewise French should not be worried about using English words for things, that's how languages work, they borrow.

"Never" was a poor choice of words on my part. Sorry for that. However you're looking at things a bit naive if you assume that the primary way words are created is through borrowing from other languages. Yes that is a part of the evolution of language, but it's not the only part.

Let's not forget that American English and British English differ as well. For example:

    * fanny / bum,
    * pants / trousers,
    * underpants / pants,
    * sidewalk / pavement,
    * elevator / lift,
    * truck / van,
    * car trunk / car boot,
    * kindergarten / playschool,
    * restroom / toilet

and even some words pronounced the same are spelt differently:

    * center / centre,
    * standardize / standardise,
    * color / colour

You also see similar trend in other English-speaking countries as well (eg Australia refer to 'flip-flops' as 'thongs'; but in Britain, 'thongs' refer to a G-string-like garment).

So your argument about how modern terms should be static across languages doesn't even ring true amongst the different regions of the world speaking the same language.

Yep there is a civil service bureaucracy that comes up with new approved "french" words for example disque dur for a hard disk or DASD if your an IBM type.

A few years ago I had the job of installing Wordstar 2000 for our bi/tri ligual typing pool and had to refer to a french technical dictionary a lot :-)

News flash: different languages use different words!

News flash languages are mutable and borrow words from other languages all the time - not even UKIP complain about french or german loan words e.g. Café schadenfreude and so on.

It seem that only France seems to feel the need to have a bureaucracy to try (in a king canute like way) to hold back the tides.

Only France, hm? Let me google that for you:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=language+academies&l=1

Just because English borrows words more easily than most other languages ("We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." -- James Nicoll) and has no central language regulating authority, doesn't mean all languages ought to work the same way.

Complaining that the French say "disque dur" instead of "hard disk" is just silly, because "disque dur" means "hard disk" in French. It's a literal translation. There's no reason to use an English term when there's a perfectly good French one available! Why don't you use a German loanword and call it a Festplattenlaufwerk in English?

"Search engine" is not jargon. An English speaker from a century ago would understand what it meant - although they wouldn't know from what you were building the engine, or what it was meant to search.

Search engine? http://www.etoday.ru/assets_c/2009/11/sobaka2-thumb-600x462-...

> I suppose in france they also translate "main" and "void" in C programs?

Visual Basic was translated (keywords and all) to many european languages. Excel formulas still have translations.

Every country does that to some degree, even the Americans. One thing that always niggles me is when I see an icon for the American flag for English in language options on web sites. Given the number of countries which have English as one of the primary languages (just off the top of my head: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, South Africa and, of course, the UK) it seems slightly misplaced for an American developer to put an American flag for English language options. Just as you wouldn't want a Mexican developer use a Mexican icon for Spanish language options.

A lot of the examples in the article you linked to makes complete sense too. In most of those cases the nouns are what's been translated and the proper nouns have been largely left in English; as far as I know, that's how languages normally work. That said, I don't see the point to the governments alternative word for e-mail.

If the software/web page is meant to be consumed primarily in the US when used in English, would it make sense to put an Indian flag there?

The fact that you've got a language selection at all implies that it's an international site. If it's a store or some such it would be a very unusual American website that shipped abroad but not to Canada.

(I'm not sure what "meant to be consumed primarily in the US" even means; I don't have national borders in mind when writing. For most sites it makes very little difference which country a visitor happens to be from.)

The US and Canada have the primary language of English. But Canada also has French, and certain sections of the US have Spanish as a predominant language. Just one example: If I have a US company that also ships to Canada, it makes sense to have the US flag for English and the French (or Canadian?) flag for French Canadian. It also makes sense to have the Mexican flag for the Spanish option, because most of my Spanish speaking customers are likely to hail from Mexico, with a small number from other Central American countries.

What would not make sense is to have a UK flag for American customers, a Spanish flag for Mexican customers, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo flag for French, just to appease people who will never buy from my site. You might not have national borders in mind, but it pays to know what language your customers speak as well as what countries they are from.

In those instances I'd probably suggest going for a American/British flag [1] or maybe the same thing with the American/Canadian flag?

[1] http://thecultureur.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/e7qd6.jpg

However I can forgive the use of the American glaf in your example as if you're shipping software then that's a little different as it's a targeted application rather than my example example of a public facing website which would have people from all nationalities visiting.

If you've got different language options then it's not aimed primarily at the US

I had this discussion recently due to the Coke commercial during the Super Bowl, but I'll give you the highlights.

Not everyone in the US speaks English as a primary language.

I appreciate what you're saying but number of public websites with different language options which weren't meant for countries outside of the US is going to be pretty low relative to the alternative. Occam's Razor would suggest those sites are generally intended for international consumption.

However, to get back to my original point, I was commenting about how all countries nationalise common language; and regardless of the justification of using an American flag for English language options, it's still an example of that point.

In some cases it makes sense. Date, number and measurements vary a lot between English speaking countries. Now, you'd probably just geolocate but still- locale is more than language. An American Flag can give you an en-US locale, a UK flag, en-GB, etc since English is a pretty good guess for the language they want.

That's fine if you do have different locales, and I also find it acceptable when software labels their language as "American English" or "English (American)" (the latter being preferable, former acceptable). But when your options are only European flags (Spanish, French, German, etc) and the American one (and maybe some Asian flags depending on how global the product is), but I'd personally say the language overrides the locale.

CNIL is probably the single office in French bureaucracy that understand internet. The problem is that it is alone and has no support from government and has very reduced means of action.

France is a nation of silly customs and infuriatingly odd notions of fairness and justice.

  Starting January 1, Uber drivers in France will have to wait 15 minutes
  between receiving a reservation and actually picking up the customer.

  The rule, reported by French newspaper Libération, is meant to "better
  distinguish the activity of these vehicles from that of taxis," as only taxis
  have the right to drive around looking for customers, instead of taking
  reservations.

  More simply, it's designed to protect the legal monopoly of taxis by making
  services like Uber a lot slower and a lot less convenient. [1]

Thankfully the decree was struck down.

  France’s Conseil d’État suspended the controversial decree against urban
  transportation services like Uber and LeCab. As a reminder, since January
  1, drivers have had to wait 15 minutes between the time a customer hails them
  and they let them in the car. But it created a competitive imbalance, that’s why
  the rule was just suspended — TechCrunch has confirmed with multiple services. 
  The French authority will now have to state whether this law should be 
  completely repealed.

  In France, the cab industry is very regulated, and taxi licenses are hard to
  obtain. Over the past few years, the French government has been very 
  understanding with cab drivers as they have the ability to block airports 
  and city centers.

  Many cab drivers started to consider LeCab, Chauffeur-privé, SnapCar, Allocab,
  Uber and countless of others as direct competitors — they wanted something from
  the government.[2]

[1]

http://www.businessinsider.com/french-law-makes-uber-less-co...

[2]

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/council-of-state-suspends-1...

OK, what does this have to do with abuse of personal information though as highlighted in the OP?

Said as if the Taxi lobbies in US cities aren't trying to do the same thing...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/technology/app-maker-uber-...

  And one [rule] says limousines may not accept a request for a
  ride that is made less than 30 minutes in advance, which
  would impede Uber’s primary business model of connecting
  luxury car drivers with passengers immediately

Because staying is profitable.

Let me quote from the article:

> « The CNIL explanation of its imposition of the fine says that “the company does not sufficiently inform its users about the conditions and purposes of processing data” and that “it does not set retention periods for all data process” and that “it allows, without any legal basis, the combination of all the data it collects about users across all of its services”. » //

This sounds like a complaint that you might find on HN any day of the week - unwarranted use of personal information by Google. I don't see how the OP is especially French not when you take in to account, as is mentioned, that several other EU states have similar objections standing. The French are almost democratic in their fascination with the rights of the individual, no?

Yes, if you think responsible curacy of your users personal information is beyond the pale then don't deal with countries that attempt to protect their citizens/subjects from such abuses [by private companies at least!].

While it is true that L'académie française sometimes comes out with peculiar recommendations, this particular blog does a poor job of pointing them out. In particular, the author does not appear to have a very good grasp of colloquial French, or the history of some terms used in the software and computer fields.

For example:

1) courriel is not a contraction of courrier and email, but of courrier électronique (i.e. electronic mail).

2) The verb planter in the context of a computer crash does not derive directly from "to plant", but from a colloquial term meaning to make a mistake (itself possibly derived from some sense of becoming like a vegetable/plant).

Because Frenchies like to be French and would like to remain different in a world where everything is "Holliwoodized".

OK the real reason is they suck at learning English so they need to translate everything ;-)

Being French I'd appreciate if HN remained free of the usual French bashing that is common on Anglo-saxon forums.

I don't understand, people still react like we were a country that matters ...

> OK the real reason is they suck at learning English so they need to translate everything ;-)

Not really, Swedes are #1 in the world at English as a second language and aren't afraid to flaunt it, but we also translate most technical terms. It's just way easier to use in a conversation.

Headline a week from now: France Fines Google For Malicious DDOS attack on Watchdog Site.

I wonder if the Google cache had a copy.

What's the likely hood someone at Google actually considered this would happen and went ahead with it anyway? (or was the link a mandatory part of the statement they were told to issue?).

The link was mandatory.

The point he is trying to make that someone at google could have suspected the high traffic and didn't warn them because it isn't their problem.

And they say that Americans dont get "irony" :-)

First line of fifth paragraph: The CNIL had demanded that the notice stay on the site for two days.

Please, at the very least, give the article a cursory skim before knee-jerk commenting.

The notice had to stay on the site - yes - but I wasn't sure if the link (which was only a small part of the notice) had to be included as part of the notice.

regardless of the mandatory aspect, the question still hold, did they anticipate the flood

Please, at the very least, try to understand the comment before knee-jerk commenting.

I'm not sure why you received such a negative comment from mseebach - the first part of your comment is a perfectly valid question that's not addressed in the article.

The people at Google must have suspected that it would happen. Whether they specifically pointed out that they were going to send huge amounts of traffic to their site or not would be interesting to know.

It's probably in part because 'went ahead with it anyway' implies negligence.

Not negligence. Malice :) I was really just imagining someone at Google realising what was going to happen and being secretly quite happy about it.

Well, I'm all on the CNIL side, but clearly the people there should have thought of it on their own (and I'm actually surprised they did not), and take appropriate action. For instance serving at least that specific page statically from a server which could endure the two days of Google.fr.

Errr, the links seems to be working fine?! Usual Guardian French-bashing?

Please get your dates right. The outage happened on Friday the 7th of February, and only lasted until Saturday afternoon.

Of course, the link is now working fine again.

The link was on google's homepage from Friday to Saturday.

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