The EU really is a joke.
I think if people want to hide stuff like revenge porn, or obvious slander, then fair enough. But unindexing legitimate journalism is stupid.
I think if people want to hide stuff like revenge porn, or obvious slander, then fair enough. But unindexing legitimate journalism is stupid.
Google don't want to do this and are trying to make a mockery of the ruling removing from the results anything that they are asked to as long as it is about a person with the very aim of stirring a backlash against the ruling. Requests to take down important stories from major news organisations are the perfect way to do this provided that they keep the blame on the EU not on their implementation.
I haven't read the ruling but I'm pretty sure that there is some leeway for judgement and for Google to have a process to decide on these cases rather than having to comply with every single request.
I would need to understand the ruling better to come down with a full view about whether it is right or not. On the one hand Google's results can cause a lot of damage and they should carry some responsibility for them on the other legitimate stories of real public interest and information about serious wrongdoing shouldn't be censored.
Public, factual information causes damage and Google is responsible because somebody else reported on it and they indexed it? And so Google should stop linking to the article which will still exist and can be found on other search engines in other jurisdictions without any effort? And we can pretend online censorship works all of a sudden now that the EU found a "good" excuse for it?
> The European Court ruled that some things should be made harder to find (revenge porn, obvious slander, spent convictions etc.).
So what does freedom of expression mean to you, then? A regulated, controlled public discourse with arbitrary rules about what the government thinks is relevant or important for people to know or read about? And it looks like you slipped "spent convictions" in there, which throws off the argument.
I think you already made your mind up.
Given this my comment is probably too harsh, there is no evidence that Google isn't properly assessing requests that I am aware of.
The difficulty with following that logic is in the blurry middle area. Where is the line drawn and who makes that decision?
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets...
"In practice, a search engine will have to delete information when it receives a specific request from a person affected... Google will then have to assess the deletion request on a case-by-case basis and to apply the criteria mentioned in EU law and the European Court’s judgment....
The request may for example be turned down where the search engine operator concludes that for particular reasons, such as for example the public role played by John Smith, the interest of the general public to have access to the information in question justifies showing the links in Google search results. In such cases, John Smith still has the option to complain to national data protection supervisory authorities or to national courts. Public authorities will be the ultimate arbiters of the application of the Right to be Forgotten. "
Then we just end up back in the previous situation where you had to get the site that posted the content to remove it, which had a fairly well defined set of requirements. And tada! Just like that there's no problem anymore.
This is simply the result of the courts interpretation of the law as it is and it applies to every search engine not just Google.