When the top European court ruled that users have a right to be forgotten by search engines, they opened the door to a disruptive wave of possibilities.
“It’s just such a mind-bogglingly impossible decision,” said Fred Cate, distinguished professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “Courts aren’t responsible for the practical implications of rulings but this really staggers the imagination.”
And:
“They’d have to hire an army of compliance officers,” said Justin Brookman, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Project on Consumer Privacy. That may make it difficult for companies to “scalably compete online,” he said.
Also:
At the company’s annual shareholder meeting today, Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said the ruling “went too far.” He added that the EU court “didn’t consider adequately the impact on free expression, which is absolutely a human right.”
I can’t imagine Google, et al, won’t challenge this ruling.
They can complain all they want but they’ll find it difficult to challenge the ruling of the highest court in Europe.
The decision is not that bad either, it’s in line with how Europe expects it’s companies to handle personal data. Search engines and internet indexes should not be above the law that allows the public to request removal of their personal information.
Keep in mind a lot of the negative commentary is biased. Much of it, like the ones quoted here, traces back to Google-funded organisations like the Center for Democracy and Technology or others with an interest in the matter.
Europeans have a series of legal privacy and data rights that are enshrined in law in the EU, and I find it strange that some companies that do business in the EU feel that they are free to ignore this.
[Ditto the way Apple feels they can ignore EU rules on warranties, but I digress.]
Challenge … to which court?
The Hague? I don’t think that’s their business.
What other court?
I think many people forget just what implications this ruling has. The case began when a Spanish man searched for his name and found where there was a story in 1998 about his debt and the forced sale of his home. He sued because he wanted his name removed from a newspaper’s record. He won this case, so now the newspaper must erase him from their record. This is a ridiculous violation of freedom of the press.
Now theoretically a politician in the middle of a scandal could have his information removed from a newspaper’s record. Yay for freedom of speech.
Hopefully these types of laws make their way across the Atlantic. The tech giants have far too much control over our content and the consumer needs to be able to have the ability to control it more than we can now.
The ruling does not affect the paper. You can check the press release http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-05/cp140070en.pdf
Apple already changed their warranty information and it’s very informative now, e.g. from their UK site:
“In the United Kingdom, consumers are entitled to a free of charge repair or replacement, by the seller, of goods which do not conform with the contract of sale. Under English law, consumers have up to six years from the date of delivery to exercise their rights however, various factors may impact your eligibility to receive these remedies. For details, clickhere.
A Mac also comes with 90 days of complimentary telephone technical support and a one-year limited warranty from Apple. To learn more about how Apple will service your Mac, click here.
Purchase the AppleCare Protection Plan to get up to three years of expert telephone technical support and additional hardware service options from Apple. For more information, click here.”
This is actually a lot more detailed than most other companies… E.g. the local PC World store still says products only have 12 months’ warranty.
This is a ridiculous violation of freedom of the press.
I think that’s BS. But…
What are the implications for coverage of corporate malfeasance? With the horrifically abused notion of corporations-as-people (money is free speech!) anyone clamouring for this right to apply to individuals would ensure that in a very short period of time corporations would be applying the “right to be forgotten” to whatever uncomfortable truths are a matter of public record in the archives of news agencies. Slippery slopes don’t make for good arguments, but anyone who believes that such a ruling would not be abused by corporations is a bit naive. We already have de facto news muzzling by virtue of consolidated corporate ownership. What happens corporations win the right to have archives erased regarding their poor environmental records or other crimes?
Yes, because what you want are guys with child p**n and politicians to get a chance to muck up the system and hide useful, factual information from the public. You know who will benefit from this the most? The wealthy, who can hire reputation management firms to be on the lookout for negative things and be able to appeal the policies internally.
It will also hurt the value of the web, people will leave the good about themselves and hide the bad. It will make using the internet to do research about people equivalent to asking their mother.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27423527
It did affect the paper. People can’t search for it via Google. However, the newspaper is also a company that also likely indexes its own articles for its own website search. The actual ruling as stated could go back to court again where the man could request that the newspaper remove it from their searches. That’s almost just like ordering the newspaper to delete the article itself. It’s ridiculous.
Google’s indexing a website per the website’s permission isn’t corporate malfeasance, and this has nothing to do with the corporate BS going on in the United States.
What was indexed wasn’t libel. It wasn’t creepy public information about him that he didn’t willingly give. It was a news report of a public record.
If it was anything but public record the man should have the right to request removal. If he never signed up for a Facebook account and a friend showed him loads of information about him on Facebook that he didn’t provide then he should be able to request removal. I’m not arguing against removal. I’m arguing against a cut and dry request.
Slippery slopes do make for good arguments. You even provide slippery slope arguments yourself that oddly mirror the one I made of a scandalized politician. It allows people to stop and think of the implications of what they’re proposing. Something might sound great on paper but not be so cut and dry in practice — like this. The Equal Rights Amendment wasn’t approved in the U.S. for this very reason. It was written the way it was and then passed in Congress, but people then realized it could go as far as banning separate bathrooms. Unfortunately it never was addressed again because the Reaganites took over.
I’m not the only one that’s seeing this from this angle. The New York Times Editorial Board wrote an editorial about just what I’m addressing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/opinion/ordering-google-to-forget.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I think I would rather that social media be required to have a ‘do not index’ option so there’s nothing to forget, it was never there.
Those rules aren’t about warranties. If you are going to shit on someone get that part right at least.
Those EU rules are buying rights not the same thing. And outside of like two countries really only work for the first six-twelve months of the years covered. cause any consumer that has an issue after that time is going to be hard pressed to prove it was an issue at delivery. And that is part of the system