Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwyers | Hacker News Reader

I don't really see how it would be contempt of court for Google to shut down its European servers and redirect all its European domains to go to Google.com. It would be a lot of other things, but I don't think it would be contempt of court.

View on HN

The court ordered Google Inc to remove certain listings. They did not specify "only on certain TLDs" or "only from certain servers." Including them in search results is violating the court order. I guess if Google pulled out of the EU entirely, closing all European subsidiaries, relocating employees and removing all assets, then they could make a case that the court no longer has jurisdiction... that seems like it'd be difficult. IANAL.

They still show the results on non-EU TLDs.

Why do you say that? The court's authority AFAIK had nothing to do with the TLD being used, but because Google Spain is within their jurisdiction.

Check out the Guardian story, which has screenshots of the two side by side (or try their example directly by searching for "Dougie McDonald Guardian" on google.com vs google.co.uk. Ignore the news articles, just look at the missing top stories).

The EU court has no authority outside of the EU.

And Google is in the EU, no?

Which is why the EU version of Google has complied with the EU court.

He or she says it because it's true, and widely reported.

As the Guardian notes, Google.com still has the results that Google.co.uk has removed:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/02/eu-righ...

Indeed, and if that wasn't enough of a disincentive they'd lose out on the favourable taxation they get from basing themselves in Europe - specifically, Ireland.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/google-pays-17m-in-...

Although I understand that the European Commission will soon be focusing their attention on the tax arrangements of some of the Irish-based tech giants (Apple, Google etc.)

In Europe they're more serious about the concept of "spirit of the law". Particularly when circumvention is used as a route around a ruling.

> I don't really see how it would be contempt of court

Well I do, and I can guarantee you that courts would see it too. In Europe, laws generally aren't to be interpreted by the letter. You can't game them with technicalities (well it depends, but in this case it's quite clear).

Well then explain it to me. Google.com still shows the listings. Is that contempt of court?

It's not, as long as the European sites don't show them, because the court is well aware that it doesn't have jurisdiction outside the EU.

It's really not complicated.

Well that was my entire point: that Google was doing everything it could to fight the EU's "right to be forgotten" short of simply deciding (like they did with China) to stop operating a search engine in EU's jurisdiction.

My point is that stopping operating their search engine in the EU, while redirecting European domains to Google.com, and keeping headquarters there, would be contempt of court. Because it's very obviously not following the court's decision. Whereas obeying the court order in Europe but not in the rest of the world is completely normal.

Of course, stopping all operations in EU altogether would be fine too, but they're not going to do that.

> In Europe, laws generally aren't to be interpreted by the letter.

That's a very general statement and generally untrue (although you are in this case, partially correct). Acts and statutes are always interpreted by the letter, you are perhaps confusing this by making a comparison of these EU statutes with common law or jus commune as that is interpreted by "the spirit of the law" (usually informed by case-law, constitutions etc. depending on the country).

Acts and statutes are not common law (or natural law), and these EU measures are enabled by acts and statutes in each separate EU member state. So they are indeed interpreted to the letter as these acts must be implemented in states with codified constitutions (where one court has supreme interpretation of a constitution and must apply EU law with direct effect, although the big ones haven't done this till recently) and ones without (where there is an indirect effect of law). This is known as the Supremacy Doctrine[1]. The only exception is when the interpretation comes from the European Court of Justice.

The part you are absolutely right about, is that in this specific case, interpretation will not be up to each member state as this amendment was straight from the European Court of Justice. Generally, however, as far as "European law" goes, until we have an actual constitution or become an actual federation, your general statement is untrue most of the time (lets not forget the EU is enabled by treaties and if you don't think the letter matters in a treaty then I have come contracts I'd love you to sign...)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_%28European_Union_la...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com