Judgement and Opinions of Case C‑131/12 <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-131/12" rel="nofollow">http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-131/12</a><p>Judgement Text: <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=152065&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=252458" rel="nofollow">http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...</a>
I could and would argue that there are times in which a person should have the right to not be found.<p>An example scenario: Alice is a victim of a crime, reports the crime and Bob is arrested and goes on trial. Bob pleads not guilty and Alice participates in the trial as a witness. Bob is sentenced, the court record is made. The Daily News (fictional paper) reports on the court records of the day and has a reporter who attends the more interesting cases, and mentions Bob's sentence and gives some of Alice's statements as quotes.<p>In that scenario, the court record should always be a matter of public record, a statement of fact. The newspaper certainly has the right to access public record and to make a news story of the set of facts that are in the public record.<p>But, here starts the problems... Alice applies for a job and the employer Googles her name and comes across the news article. There are many types of crimes in which the public have great difficulty accepting a victim is a victim. For example, rape. It isn't too much of a stretch to say that the culture of victim blaming means that a matter of public record has just had the effect of defaming Alice.<p>Alice as a victim is never given the opportunity to move on with her life when every person that ever searches for her will find the story very quickly. She has been sentenced too by participating in the justice system, which is an open book.<p>The newspaper, just as in this case, will argue this is public record and cannot be silenced. Sure, I agree... but that doesn't mean that it's in the victims interest that the information be extraordinarily easy to find.<p>And Google are a better place in which to attempt to stop the information being found, given that they (and only 1 or 2 other search engines) cover the vast majority of searches made about someone.<p>Alice certainly does have the right to make information that she didn't explicitly choose to make public and that can cause her harm not be found so easily, even when that information is a matter of fact and public record.<p>She has the right to not be found (by that method - Google).<p>PS: I know a girl experiencing almost <i>exactly</i> that scenario, who cannot get a news story off of the front page results for her name. This isn't even a stretch scenario. The local newspaper just hasn't bothered responding to requests.
I sincerely think it's a good thing for the courts to look out for individuals's rights, but they are overestimating the power of the law. A thing can't be removed from the Internet once published, and forcing Google to remove it from their index is <i>at best</i> a middling measure that may slightly limit the exposure of said material.<p>I wish the court would grant me the right to fly as well, but it's beyond their power. I guess they just need a few more decades for the judges to die off and for the new old men to have a better intuitive understanding of the way the digital world works.
A couple of questions pop to mind:<p>- Will that affect the work of archive.org and the wayback machine?<p>- Is it okay for a politician to "erase" something he/she said 10 years ago?
One quite an important fact is forgotten there, that publishing information is basically irreversible action. Even if google removed the information from their search engines, other search engines probably won't. And of course decentralized solutions to search engines are coming also, where information can't be removed even theoretically (for example, yacy.de)
Weirdly, I think it's more for politicians to forgot their past mistakes and their past actions than for the average citizen.<p>Taking France as an example, a lot of content (An good example will be some old racist video of our actual primer minister, past corruption of the mayor of one of major cities, stupid tweets...) is going to be censored and removed from the internet. And this is going to happen. Don't ever think one minute, the first thousand of "forgottenness" will be for citizens and not for politics.<p>I think that's one of the stupidest backward law ever. Thanks for fucking up the internet.
I am not looking forward to how this will impact discussion forums like the one we're on. Someone wants to be forgotten, therefore we must remove all posts someone made and destroy the context for everyone who may come along afterwards?<p>Just ick. Ick ick ick. More ill-thought-out "feel good" legislation like the cookie law.
I guess the takeaway is: Don't operate Big Data companies out of Europe..... Pack up your bags, apply for YC and move to SV instead...<p>All harassing publicly famous entities will achieve, is to make obtaining available information more difficult for regular people. While those with deeper pockets and better connections, will simply pay niche providers for deeper searches and indexing.<p>From a privacy POV, you would WANT this kind of White Hat demonstrations of where your privacy weak points are. That way, you are aware of them and can make accommodations. While third party services can spring up to address the most widespread concerns. Rather than show up for a job interview, and have the interviewer "know" something about you, that you have no idea is available to them at all.
The decision rules that it would be Google's responsibility to filter search results, instead of the responsibility of actual page removing private data. So you can find the data if you know where to look at, just don't use Google?
Not just a can of worms, more like a full barrel. Shouldn't the publisher of the data be the one you turn to in the first place? I hope there is more to this story than is being told by Reuters.
I am not sure how most countries in the EU handle the press, but without digging into this too much, it seems like this ruling greatly limits the freedom of press. What if a scandal is uncovered regarding a political leader or someone closely related with them? Does that person have the "right" to kill the right that the free press has to go public with the information? I really don't think something like this would stand up in the US at all, but I'm unfamiliar with press laws in most of Europe.
Question: Assuming for a moment that there <i>is</i> a right to be "forgotten". Should that right be permanent? I would argue that while it <i>is</i> relevant during a person's lifetime, it actually would hurt the public good if we made it permanent. My thought process goes out to say 100 years from now, where there may be researchers/family members that want to know more. Should they still be restricted well after I am dead? Thoughts?
So how does one go about asking Google to remove a front page search result about yourself that you do not wish to exist?<p>Google are famed for having virtually no way of contacting them, does it require the individual to jump through hoops to do so?<p>And no, not thinking of myself... but wondering just whether there are mechanisms available already to those who will now seek to exercise their right.
"Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread." ~Franz Kafka<p>... and I wonder how much of the work of a genius would have been lost forever if his wishes had been honored.
So where this sensitive information starts? If I write on my blog something like "Today I went to the zoo and saw John Doe talking to giraffes", will John Doe have the right to force me delete this text?
The reason why most applications don't have an undo operation is because it is something that needs to designed from the ground up. Its really too late for the Internet to have an undo.
"The company says forcing it to remove such data amounts to censorship."<p>Don't they see that personal censorship is something good opposed to government censorship?
The biggest issue is that we don't own our data. It's stored in Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.. servers. It should work the other way around, every individual should keep his own data and provide permissions to external services and other people to access it. Is there any project looking into this direction ? How do we reverse this situation ?