I mean, honestly, think for a moment. Where does this end? Does Turkey get to request materials related to the Armenian genocide be removed from all search indices? Will the victims in Tiananmen Square be silenced by a Chinese court? Will war criminals who can find a friendly court be able to expunge their global record?
And why limit matters there? What other edits of history, of culture, must be allowed? Can Iran ask for links to the blasphemer Salman Rushdie and his works be removed globally? Would a new Comstock Act let the US request that searches for birth control methods be eliminated, not just within our borders but globally?
Once you start claiming a global jurisdiction to hide information that you think is wrong, evil, useless, or harmful, you, Canada (and you, EU), establish a precedent that will bite everyone, yourselves included, in the butt.
Reshared post from +Steven Flaeck
We will soon be reduced to a compartmentalized system of national intranets so that companies can avoid courts claiming global jurisdiction by remaining beyond their physical reach.
Canadian court forces Google to remove search results worldwide, as fears of “memory hole” grow — Tech News and Analysis
Summary: A Canadian court is forcing Google to remove search listings not just for google.ca, but beyond the country’s borders too. The case could lead to more regional censorship practices becoming global.
I still don't understand this notion or a "right to be forgotten." You have no such right. This isn't a newly technologically relevant question, such as what counts as search and seizure. In 1776, you couldn't forget a witness to forget something you said or did in front of him. We still don't have the technological means to do that, either. Are we saying that this right suddenly comes into existence because there are more witnesses? And what about when the technology does exist, are we greenlighting the alteration of people's memories on the request of others? "I don't think he should be allowed to remember that confession I made, because it could hurt my reputation, so let's strap him in this chair and take his memories out."
I know it sounds like it's nonsense but, the way our technology is progressing, that's EXACTLY where this goes.
+Gary Roth Agreed. Not only does it smack of Winston Smith's job in 1984, but it sets a precedent for more advanced shenanigans as technology advances.
What is needed is not (for the "forgotten" part) reduced information retention, but better information retention and association. So you're irked because a Google of you leads off with your arrest for some crime of which you were eventually exonerated? Sure, I can understand that. But rather than telling Google to forget about that (because it happened), why not encourage Google to come up with better search results that make that exoneration the leading item, and teach people how to intelligently search for information about someone?
Is the civilised world’s right to privacy upsetting yanks?
+Dave Hill Precisely.
Is "Canada" even a real thing? I can't find anything about it on Google. I think it's a hoax. (…If I were Google, that is SO how I would respond to this. Just, you know – 'til the appeal.)
+Kingsley Lintz It's tempting, but ultimately self-destructive, for Google to take such an approach. If it were the only search engine out there, maybe, but …
I still don’t understand this notion or a “right to be forgotten.”
I don’t understand the notion that strangers should be allowed to find out about me with no control of how accurate the information is.
Despite other posts I don’t actually believe there should be mass censorship. There does need to be a sensible discussion on some sort of global agreement of people’s privacy. That discussion will not happen because it must include the US.
In the UK the Data Protection Act states
Google are basically sticking two fingers up at UK law when it claims it is allowed to do what it is doing. It consistently keeps data longer than is necessary, and transfers it to 3rd parties for commercial gain. It consistently keeps data that is out of date or inaccurate.
Then the US enforces its data laws on the rest of the world. People who have broken no law in their own country are extradited to the US to face trial because the data happened to go through the US.
Peter Dicks CEO of an online casino. Everything was legal – where the servers were etc. He was arrested on arrival in New York because people in Louisiana were using his company, which is illegal in the state.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=awvurvj4Zo8g
I’ll repeat – the activity was legal where it was run (the article doesn’t make it clear the servers were in a Caribbean island)
The US government fines banks for trading with banned countries. That trade doesn’t take place from the US, but because those banks have offices in the US the John Wayne wannabes you have instead of politicians get to tell them what to do.
And. Google is lying to you. The Tax-Dodging, data-stealing monopoly-seeking pretend hippies are lying. What a fucking surprise.
Just because someone puts in a right to be forgotten doesn’t mean they have to delete the data. They have to comply with the law. They choose to do that US-political thing of throwing all their toys out of the pram. Freedom Fry anyone?
It’s called the real world, and has existed since humans congregated together and promoted “gossip.” It also begs the issue of who deems what “accurate.”
I agree that such a discussion takes place. I don’t think the US is the only barrier to it happening, or to it reaching a reasonable conclusion.
Which sounds nice in principle, though it’s full of subjective terms that allow for both adequate data protection and manipulation for less sanguine reasons.
In the US, there are similar restrictions on formation regarding some of the above. They are upon the collector and retainer of said data, and those entities disseminating the information. In particular, health records (and, to a lesser extent, criminal records, particularly related to juveniles). Health information is particularly strict — if Margie’s doctor’s office, for example, calls the home with information about a test, they will neither tell me (nor the answering machine) that there was a test, let alone what the results where, only her.
Rules regarding ethnic background, religion, and political opinions are not as stringent. Ethnic background info is generally not gathered except by individual employers to be able to demonstrate that they are not discriminating based on ethnicity; it usually not available publicly nor even to folk outside of Human Resources (I don’t have access to the self-identified ethnic background codes of my reports). Religious beliefs are never gathered formally; they and ethnicity may be asked for as part of political surveys (for example), with the option to decline, in order to statistically adjust the results. Political opinions are never asked for (again, save as part of political surveys).
In any of these cases, though, informal gathering or assumption of the data may take place. A picture of me in front of a political rally with a sign saying “White Liberal Episcopalians Think the GOP Is a Bunch of Doofuses” is fair game, for example.
Google points to data that is (or, sometimes, was, though it will discard it on recrawl) put on the internet. If there are problems with that data, it is not Google’s responsibility to change those pointers, but the person putting the data out, any more than a pub is responsible for any slanderous rumors that are discussed there by the patrons. If that’s too difficult, or runs into other data protections, that’s not Google’s fault.
So if a newspaper article is (truly) misleading (not just inconvenient) about something that happened to someone X years ago, the fault is not Google’s if the newspaper’s archive still has that story without any correction, or if the corrections are in another, less popular article on the same site. The fault is with the newspaper, and with the people whose impression about someone is based on the first article they spot about them in Google.
And I agree completely that this is not right.
That’s a slightly different case. I agree it’s a bit dodgy — we would object to China fining an American company for activities on American soil just because they have an office in China. On the other hand, the globalization of companies to find homes that are advantageous as far as taxes and laws go makes this a shell game that corporations can exploit. My inclination off-hand would be to only restrict activities that take place within US jurisdiction — but I suspect there are a lot of ways that can lead to less desirable results. On the other hand, taking the other course lets the least permissive country in a globalized world dictate how the rest of the world lives, also undesirable.
As far as I can tell, that is what they have been doing, with Google services that face the juridictions where that applies. The question is, does that apply to Google services outside those jurisdictions?
^ Bugger – needs that first line marked as a quote, or it makes no sense!
Well, you're right, of course, at least over a long term like that. That kind of visceral pleasure is so rarely the right thing to do…sigh
Maybe just a day or two, then? Just enough to make the point. Google has a pretty good reputation still, and an established history of little practical jokes; I think it would register mostly as "funny", but then might get people thinking about just how much is being lost to these rulings, and how much more could be. Especially if they immediately get out there and frame it that way. What if the United States did, in fact, decide that the existence of Canada – a nation right next to us, settled by European colonists at the same time yet who never felt the need to rebel against them – was embarrassing? You know, historically? Or if we didn't want our people realizing that there's a superior healthcare system right next door? So we push through a ruling that Google must disallow all searches relating to this rather awkward topic. ..Next, of course, is blocking all references to the United States in searches originating from Mexico, which would certainly pass Congress today, and probably clear the Supreme Court in their traditional 5-4 style.
Like I said – Google, who somehow still manage to convince net users they are cuddly bearded guys sticking it to the man, rather than a powerful behemoth, are taking the piss. All they have to do is comply with DP laws, not remove every request.
Europeans believe governments should protect the citizens. Yanks appear to believe gubmint gets in the way of the interests of the rich, and given the belief ‘one day I can be rich’ (hint- unless you are extremely lucky, you are stuck) they don’t want to cost their future self money.
@LH – I completely agree with the principle that the government — as representatives of the citizens, should be protecting them. My concerns come in governments that aren’t representatives of mine dictating to me what they consider appropriate for me to see (I have a problem with my own government regarding that, but at least I have resource there). That’s not so much a matter of protecting Google as a corporation (the principle applies to any search engine), but myself.
Sorry – this is one of the things thats winding me up- the reporting is skewed. Courts say “Media- stop doing X”. Media then reports that… People then believe the Media.
@LH – So is there something specific about the reporting here? The story here reports:
So this isn’t even a Right to Be Forgotten / Data Privacy case, but a court trying to enforce a local ruling on an IP violation beyond its jurisdiction. Granted, the US can be particularly obnoxious in the IP arena, but that’s beside the point. The primary connection with the EU cases is regarding a jurisdiction being able to control what shows up on the Internet outside that court’s jurisdiction.