back to article FORGET OUR PAST, 12,000 Europeans implore Google

A widely distributed report by Agence-France Presse quotes a Google official as saying 12,000 Europeans have asked the ad-slinging giant to omit some search results linked to their name. Of course, the web giant can simply ignore the requests, and send the complainants to information commissioners or the courts to deal with. …

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  1. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    "regulation is not the best way to approach the problem"

    Given the way Google has behaved over recent years and the irresponsible and arrogant way it has gathered, processed and disseminated people's private information (hint: Google, try looking up the Data Protection Act), it seems that regulation is the only way left to approach it since the Big G won't listen (or consider) anything else.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Let's all do

      Ask Google to forget us, then watch them scream in pain.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Forget me

      Every Politician and Celebrity with a bit of scandal in their lives will be asking to be forgotten................ But only the bad stuff of course.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. as2003

    A few media outlets seem to be implying that 12,000 is a large number. I suspect Google get an order of magnitude greater sign ups per day.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      They probably get a lot more than that in DCMA takedowns for YouTube as well...

      Still, in Germany they have take to pre-emptively taking down music videos. They used to blame it on GEMA (the German equivalent of the Performing Rights Society), but GEMA took them to court, saying they couldn't blame the take-downs on GEMA, because GEMA hadn't asked for the videos to be taken down... So now the message reads along the lines of "this video might contain music for which we haven't asked GEMA for a licence to use."

      The one thing that many press outlets (especially American outlets) seem to ignore is that this isn't about any old information. There are already ways of dealing with information that is slanderous etc. This is about personal information that is no longer valid or relevant - the case in point being the Spaniard who wanted references to a 2 decade old house reposetion removed, because it was no longer legal to use that information in credit worthiness checks, but because it was turning up in searches about him, it was still being incorporated into decisions about his credit worthiness.

      The US seem to be trying to ridicule the decision as well. Although this was an EU wide ruling from the EU court of justice, many outlets seem to be reporting it as "a single Spanish judge."

      1. John Lilburne

        Exactly. Google knows that scrawling though decades old databases is going to fetch up irrelevant data. It knows that trawling through 4chan isn't going to result in accurate data about someone either. It chooses to do both and collate the results because it is cheaper than not doing so. Either that or its search algorithms are so crap that it can't tell shite from bull.

        Now its playing the EVUL politician/criminal card. It its algorithms are any good it knows all about them too. Why does this $billion company always want someone else to foot the bill for its business?

        ---

        They have been inserting little memes in everybody's mind. So Google's shills can shriek there whenever they're inclined

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Sign-ups are automated, and cheap. I suspect that figuring out whether a link should be removed or not is an expensive decision involving actual human beings, in particular lawyers.

          But hey, Google has money so it can pay, right?

  3. drunk.smile

    Why would I not be surprised

    If each of those completed forms end up stuck in limbo waiting on the data protection agency of each country to confirm that the links can be removed?

    Get rid of the problem by passing it on to someone else, GOFH style.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why would I not be surprised

      Exactly.

      I mean why on earth did google put the form up in the first place?

      Given that the ruling states their is a process an individual must go through prior to google removing anything.

      The forms existance implies you can just rocket right through that.

      I don't get it!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why would I not be surprised

        As far as I understand, the process really is "Ask Google, and if they say no, appeal to the data protection authorities". Essentially, the data protection authorities don't have the kind of resources and money to treat all the requests, and the hope is that Google will accept or reject for clear reasons most of the applications.

        I suspect the data protection authorities have been swamped with requests from individuals, and have asked Google to put up a form as soon as possible. Considering they got taken by surprise by the ruling two weeks ago, Google probably still don't have a clue of how the reviewing process will look like and what rules they will use for taking a decision, but at least now they can take applications.

        A lot of the applications can probably be refused easily ("Sorry, politicians and celebrities don't benefit from the right to be forgotten"), but a lot of the rest will be unclear. How many years until an arrest for theft is irrelevant? For robbery? For murder? What if the criminal was a minor? There are no clear laws on the subject, considering the case of the Spanish guy had to be referred all the way to the European Court of Justice in order to have a clear decision.

        Since nobody has a clear idea what the limits are exactly, Google is going to take decisions, trying to guess what the data protection authorities would decide. In cases that are on the limit, they will tend to reject applications, because they don't like to remove stuff from their results unless they absolutely have to.

        Internally, what Google will do is first write up general guidelines, then hire a team of cheap people somewhere in India to go through applications and take the easiest decisions; the more complicated decisions will be escalated to less cheap people in Europe, and for really complicated decisions, an expensive lawyer will be called.

        But all in all I would assume months are going to pass before the first decision is taken.

  4. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Has anyone done the slightest bit of thinking here?

    Please send me proof of identity and a list of the most embarrassing web pages about you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Has anyone done the slightest bit of thinking here?

      Perhaps Google are considering expanding into the Blackmail market?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Has anyone done the slightest bit of thinking here?

        Perhaps Google are considering expanding into the Blackmail market?

        Given what they seem to get away with, one possible conclusion is that that has happened already. It's a "natural" side effect of having data on everyone, and an apparent absence of any morals in acquiring and using that data.

        1. ratfox
          Angel

          Re: Has anyone done the slightest bit of thinking here?

          Just wait until they charge £50 to process your application…

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And every single piece of information those 12,000 don't want read, will still be there. Not a single word of it will be removed, edited, or retracted.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      But it'll be well-hidden

      People will only be able to find it if they already know where to look.

      Or if they use Bing.

  6. ratfox
    Paris Hilton

    Why is Google in charge of the process?

    That I understand, people have to contact Google using that form, then Google decides if they agree or not (I suspect their answer will be no more often that not), then people need to appeal to the data protection agency of their country. And then people need to redo the whole thing again for Yahoo and Bing.

    Why wouldn't people directly contact the data protection agencies, which would then notify Google et al. of their decision? This would speed up the process, and let people have a single point of contact for all their privacy needs.

    It's not clear to me why the courts decided that a first decision about privacy should be taken by Google, which people don't exactly trust on the subject, rather than the data protection agencies, whose job it is supposed to be.

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

      "It's not clear to me why the courts decided that a first decision about privacy should be taken by Google".

      Because it's easiest and cheapest to avoid courts in dispute resolution. But it's the courts ultimately decide, not the search engines. The media has falsely created the impression that Google is beleagured, with some woeful reporting - because the media love "internet is broken" stories. However Google has no obligation to devote any resources to the complaint. Google can refuse and bounce *every single one* of those 12,000 (or 12 million) requests to the Information Commissioner at next to no cost.

      The sequence is:

      1 - person complains to search engine

      2 - search engine tells complainant to bugger off to the ICO.

      3 - ICO decides whether complaint has merit. This is a judicial procedure, handled in courts, that takes ages. And not many can be processed.

      The "12,000" figure is part of a PR campaign that also includes Google's paid "advisors" telling the media the "Internet Is Broken". Eg:

      https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/472482368566341632/photo/1

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

        "ICO decides whether complaint has merit. This is a judicial procedure, handled in courts, that takes ages."

        I thought it only went to court if someone appeals against the ICO decision?

        (Perhaps the ICO is a "court" in some kind of technical sense since failure to comply with an ICO decision notice is contempt of court but there are no barristers representing the parties or anything like that, as far as I know. Please check if you have time.)

      2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

        Re: Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

        "The '12,000' figure is part of a PR campaign"

        Absolutely, IMHO. Google is presumably filing these complaints in /dev/null. Right now, Google wants as much "poor little Google" coverage as it can get – as its brand (in the public's mind) turns from "don't be evil" to "don't unknowingly miss the opportunity to gobble information on everyone".

        C.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

        "The "12,000" figure is part of a PR campaign"

        Well, sure, but at the same time we need to remember that what's going on here is that information in the public domain (ie, on the web - for now) is being censored for reasons other than inaccuracy.

        Let's not get distracted by whether Google is evil or not; that's not the important issue. This is Stalin's airbrush back from the grave.

      4. David 164

        Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

        That up to the search engines. There nothing in the judgement which forces search engines to go to the courts but it does say that the person requesting the removal of the link on search engines must make the request to the search engine first and ask for the links to be remove only then can it go to the ICO refer there by either Google or the person making the request.

        This leave Google and search engines in complete control of what happens next after a request is made, most complainers aren't going to refer their complaint the ICO if their requests are accepted and if Google automatically accept all requests who is going to complain to the ICO? no one, which effectively means their zero oversight of this law and that means Google alone decide what is and isn't remove from its index, which is effectively removing it from the internet in many countries in Europe.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why is Google in charge of the process?

      That I understand, people have to contact Google using that form, then Google decides if they agree or not (I suspect their answer will be no more often that not)

      I don't, I suspect the automatic position Google will take is to remove the links. Why should they give a fuck if the EU censors the internet in Europe? They were happy enough to censor the internet in China.

      The cheapest option for them is to simply remove all requests from the index, and the easiest and cheapest way will be to automate it.

      I'm not sure why anyone thinks Google have to give any kind of fuck about your search results being censored.

      There won't be any differentiation of service, because all search engines will be forced to comply.

      If you don't find information which was relevant to whoever it was you were searching for, that's an EU law/EU court problem, not theirs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @obnoxiousGit

        First, Google is not censoring the internet in China anymore. Second, Google is very much of the opinion that everything on the internet should appear in their results. Otherwise, it means people might go to a different search engine to get more complete results. In the past, they have fought every time they were asked to remove anything, like, say, pictures of a F1 big shot in the company of lovely ladies.

        I'm sure that from Google's point of view, this is "not being evil".

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @obnoxiousGit

          Google is very much of the opinion that everything on the internet should appear in their results

          You, mean, except any information about its own executives. They are not *quite* as unbiased as they want you to believe they are..

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "except any information about its own executives"

            Sounds interesting. Source and original material hidden by Google?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    worth mentioning that most of these will likely be rejected.

    Google have already that if the information is true, then you can't have it removed. Sorry Adolf....

    11,998 dodgy builders have wasted their time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: worth mentioning that most of these will likely be rejected.

      Google have already that if the information is true, then you can't have it removed. Sorry Adolf....

      You couldn't be any further from the facts if you wanted to.

      Firstly Google don't remove the information, they only remove the links to it in their search index.

      Secondly whether it is true or not is irrelevant, as with the test case where the news article was perfectly true, just very old.

  8. Vince Lewis 1

    All searches should have a historical and keyword weighting.

    I needed to look up our son Autism consultants contact details. We just used his name and the third returned result was a 7 year old newspaper article regard his affair, over 1/2 the first page results were regarding this affair.

    While I like to believe peoples opinion of the Doctors medical ability would not be skewed by such information, I know this is not the case.

    These results should only be shown when search for doctors name and the year or the keyword affair.

    A filter on results older than 5 years would protect most people with the right to be forgotten, and still return pertinent information

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All searches should have a historical and keyword weighting.

      A related pet peeve of mind are articles and web pages that do not mention the date they were written. E.g I look for a solution to a technical problem I have with a software, and I find solutions that only a very careful examination reveals have been written five years ago for two versions before.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All searches should have a historical and keyword weighting.

      A filter on results older than 5 years would protect most people with the right to be forgotten, and still return pertinent information

      If you applied that filter to your 'Doctor' example, the Consultants affair hasn't been forgotten at all. The news articles about it are all still there and intact. They can still be found and read. They just restricted the information available to you.

      However if the GMC had convicted him of negligence in the handling of an Autism case 6 years ago, your filter would stop you finding out about it, or at least make it very hard for you to. As it stands at least he has to go through an application process (to Google) to hide that information from you.

  9. Bob Wheeler
    WTF?

    Am I missing something here?

    I don't understand what all this fuss is about.

    Goggle is a search engine, they don't hold/control/own the data/information.

    So if I was of the opinion that some article/information about me should no longer be viewed by the world, why would I not deal with the ower/hold of the source rather than the search engine.

    Getting Goggle to remove something from a search result does not remove the source, or prevent another search engine from returning the result.

    Whatever your view on Goggle is, they do not actually own the web. While they are branching our in other areas, basically they are a search engine, that makes money from selling ad's.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Am I missing something here?

      Yes, you are missing something. A search engine does hold information about you. To believe it does not is akin to believing a telephone directory does not hold information about you. It holds your telephone number. It's called meta information. And it's not just meta information - look at Google's search results - the snippets of information below the page title/link. Tell me those snippets are not stored on a Google server somewhere. That could be data about you.

      Without a telephone directory (in the old days) your chances of finding someone's telephone number is virtually nil. Without a search engine, your chances of finding a web site with information on you, is also virtually nil. So if your aim is to remove your internet history, it seems the most effective first step is to remove any references from one or two of the most used search engines - rather than potentially many many more websites.

      But I say it again, search engines do hold information about you.

  10. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    This is like

    Demanding that a librarian should strike out the names of the books you don't like from the library's index. A censorship tool under the pretext of "protecting privacy" for poor citizens. Will be mostly used by politicos to retouch and manipulate their public image.

    Whenever Russia or China passed such laws, there are outcries about suppression of internet freedoms and censorship. But it's the democratic EU which can do no wrong, so that's OK then.

    1. Tom 38

      Re: This is like

      Bollocks.

      When Russia or China do something like this, it is the State determining what content is available. This is individuals being given the ability to correct incorrect information held about them in a database by a company, and is in fact a right we in the real free world have had for a long time.

      The only really interesting thing about it is that Google had to be forced to recognise firstly that it does in fact operate in the EU, and maintains databases of personal information. There is no new right, there is Google crying because it has to follow the law.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is like

        > This is individuals being given the ability to correct incorrect information held about them in a database by a company

        Bollocks.

        The information being held is correct. The person the information is about doesn't want others to know about it and so wants google to not return search results with the information.

        The UK Data Protection Act (and various other invocations in other EU countries) allows you to force companies to correct incorrect information held in a database and has done for years.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wasn't aware that Google or anyone else were under any obligation to remove entries except as and when required by a legal authority - although they may choose to do so; I think its quite common to temporarily remove links/data when libel is alleged by someone with money, for example.

    The main point of the Euro court judgment was:

    a) that Google and other non-EU organisations were subject to EU laws & legal authorities when doing business in the EU;

    b) that Google were deemed to be doing such business.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Confused

    I'm a little confused by this.

    Lets say Peter Sutcliffe wants his past forgotten so fills out the form and Google does what it is supposed to. Any searches for Peter Sutcliffe will not return anything. But does that also mean that searching for "Yorkshire Ripper" or "Serial Killers" will not return any pages that mention him?

    1. Tom 38

      Re: Confused

      You're not a little confused, you're a lot confused.

      Peter Sutcliffe cannot have his past forgotten because it is still relevant. He can apply to Google to have his past forgotten, Google can say "Fuck off and get a court order", and the court will simply say "Fuck off".

      The recent court judgement says that when the court does order Google to remove invalid or out of date data from their database, Google must do so. Google's argument seems to be "bwaah! don't wanna!"

      To clarify, the information is in Google's database, which is the link between the keywords searched for, and the resources found for those keywords. This judgement is that where a court has ruled that the resources contain invalid or our of date data that contravenes someone's right to privacy, then Google must not link certain keywords to certain resources.

      The purpose of the court is to judge the relative merits of the individual's right to privacy and Google's rights, and Google do not have to do anything until a court has ordered them to. Google is upset because they don't want to do anything with courts at all.

      Their solution is to they hire a raft of PR guys to spin this story as much as possible to confuse people in to thinking that this means people like Peter Sutcliffe can be erased from the internet. This form and the 12,000 "requests" that it has received are solely designed to give Google's PR people a story that they can spin to newspapers and confuse people further.

      So far, they have had to remove one link to one article, containing out-dated financial information, when you search for one guys name, so that the guy can stop having it included in his credit score. That is it.

      Poor google, how will they cope.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Confused

        > Peter Sutcliffe cannot have his past forgotten because it is still relevant.

        Fine, then instead of Peter Sutcliffe pick Eddie Kavanagh who invaded the pitch at Wembley in 1966 and is mentioned by name in numerous accounts of that FA Cup final (just been reading a history of the FA Cup).

        If he wanted his past forgotten then does that mean searching for "FA Cup Final" will exclude any results that mention Eddie Kavannah?

        I wouldn't have an issue with any searches for "Eddie Kavanagh" not returning hits regarding his pitch invasion but I would object to searches for "FA Cup Final" or "pitch invasion" not returning hits that mentioned him invading the pitch.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Confused

        "Peter Sutcliffe cannot have his past forgotten because it is still relevant."

        Says who? You? Sutcliffe? Or some faceless unaccountable judge well past the first stage of altzhiemers?

        You didn't think these decisions would be made by a jury did you?

        1. Tom 38

          Re: Confused

          No, I didn't think these would require a jury. I also don't have such a jaded and hopelessly cynical view as you on our courts, which are independent and whose judgements are accountable, and can be appealed to higher courts with multiple judges.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Confused

            "No, I didn't think these would require a jury. I also don't have such a jaded and hopelessly cynical view as you on our courts, which are independent and whose judgements are accountable, and can be appealed to higher courts with multiple judges."

            Yeah, right. You've never seen a real court case, have you?

            Apart from anything else, we're in this mess because of a judge's decision and that particular judge has no appeal level above them, which sort of undermines all your naive beliefs at a stroke.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Confused

        So far, they have had to remove one link to one article, containing out-dated financial information, when you search for one guys name, so that the guy can stop having it included in his credit score. That is it.

        I'm calling bollocks on that, I do not believe for a minute that any serious financial organisation is using hits from Google searches to determine credit scores.

      4. David 164

        Re: Confused

        Actually he can if Google decides it wants to, there no oversight of this law if Google complies with the request as this new law effectively cobble together from a number of different laws, made by unelected judges, specifically state that it must be referred to Google/search engine first, only if they reject it can the complainer go to the ICO and from then on through the court system.

        No complainer is going to take google to the ICO if Google accepts the request, even if that request doesn't comply with the EU court ruling because hey they got what they wanted, their past whitewash and they aren't going to care if their request broke the ruling and Google aren't going to complain about themselves granting such requests and the user won't know such links have been removed because informing us such links been remove breaks the whole point of the right to be forgotten in the first place.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A good way to publicize what you want hidden

    As I understand it, Google will put a statement on results pages where links have been removed stating that this is the case. In addition, the full results will be on Google.com. So, if you search for somebody and see they've had something removed, you can just go over to .com and find out what. This isn't a clever way to hide anything.

    I also agree with others that there needs to be more clarity on what searches the links are removed from. It's one thing removing links from the results returned for a person's name, but removal of that page from any search results is a significant step further

    1. David 164

      Re: A good way to publicize what you want hidden

      That presumes they put in the same system they have for their copyright complaints. they probably will but it not guaranteed.

      The judges ruling makes no demands for such a system in their ruling and Yahoo doesn't tell the user that links related to their search have been remove, Bing tell you that links been remove but provide no detail information on each like Google does. I doubt small search companies could afford to build such a system that inform the user of each request and detail explanation of why the link have been removed.

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