Billed hourly rate
Software engineers are cheap compared to lawyers :)
Google allows software engineers, as well as its dedicated Right To Be Forgotten (RTBF) operatives, to make decisions about which search results ought to be deleted on request – and places such requests onto its internal bug-handling systems. Behind-the-scenes details of how the "online advertising technology" company handles …
Software engineers are cheap compared to lawyers :)
Everything is cheap compared to lawyers! That's why unleashing the dogs of law should be a last resort for everyone, and yet depressingly, is becoming the first act of too many disputes.
I can only admire Dante's restraint in not populating a 10th circle with lawyers.
Also known as laws. (Which are often badly thought out and written anyway.)
"... seeking to suppress search results for illegitimate reasons."
That's why we need a Google 'legal specialist' (who is not by training, a lawyer) to run the process for making the decisions.
It's a mess but what can you expect?
and to hell with the rest of us. We don't matter one little bit. Our rights to be forgotten are mere pimples on a wart. They'd rather us go away and be good little proles.
Google is EVIL. If you remember that in your dealings with them then you are good to go.
To be fair (and I am not known for cutting Google much slack), this is just a way for Google to handle the requests. If the complainant is unhappy with how Google has handled it there is still the regular legal process as a backstop. I think it's great if things like this can be handled satisfactory for both parties without burdening the already struggling legal system.
I'm not suggesting removing it from the legal domain, there needs to be oversight.
It's like passing a law that my milkman must deliver my milk but not checking they are doing it or doing it right. I could end up with goats milk or even cheese. Then where would I be? I can't put cheese in my cup of tea.
<i...I can't put cheese in my cup of tea.....</i>
You can. You will not like it, but that's of no concern to government.
They have recently appled perssure to companies to remove sugar from squash, and substitute sucralose. I don't like the taste, but no one in government is interetsed in that - or even asked me...
"Thankfully NOT in the UK
we have laws about justice, not just detailed laws about hourly billing"
While the legal landscape is different in the UK to the US, at heart it's about how much cash you can throw at a case. A magic circle law firm or even *just* a QC will make a huge difference to your results in court, and perhaps more importantly, what is allowed to reported on.
Laws are a set of rules, and in theory is impartial and factual*. They have *nothing* to do with justice. Decisions upon which laws to enforce, severity of punishments etc can be just or not depending upon perspective, but the law is the law. Often the law is very unjust, even in the UK.
* they are then enforced by people, so become less impartial at that point
The problem with this is that Google is effectively dealing with legal principles by not using legal principles. Of course, using lawyers may end up being costly but if an individual has to use a lawyer to make a right to be forgotten claim or if an individual is referring to a matter reflected by right to be forgotten (such as an old article), then it is somewhat incumbent on google to take due care in handling of these requests.
It sounds like google's 'system' is pretty much random at best.
I think Google would love to be able to just send everybody to regulators to decide of every single request. The only reason they're not doing that is that they were explicitly ordered by the ECJ to handle requests themselves.
But yeah, if requests are rejected, people do have the possibility to appeal to the proper authorities. This process is just a way to simplify the red tape and bring down costs whenever possible, rather than forcing everybody to do the same as NT1 and NT2.
Of course, they might be removing too many results. But then there seems to be no right to information, and Google is apparently allowed to remove whatever they want. Not that it's generally in their interest. They even warn the website whose URL is delisted, just in case they do something really stupid.
So it is a tacked-on afterthought, with no decision log, no activity log, no trace whatsoever and, if something is missing, it is concluded that "someone apparently thought something".
Wow, what an efficient process. No wonder Google doesn't use actual lawyers in that department, they'd likely have a seizure.
Oh, and BTW, could someone please specify what the legal status of an untrained lawyer is ? Because as far I know, it is NOT A LAWYER.
could someone please specify what the legal status of an untrained lawyer is ? Because as far I know, it is NOT A LAWYER.
You have something wrong here. This process is the equivalent of ringing the bell of your neighbor and asking him if he would cut down his tree which is growing over your side of the fence. You might threaten a lawsuit if he refuses to do it; but at this point, it's not a legal process. You didn't hire a lawyer yet, he doesn't need a lawyer to answer you, one way or another.
What Google is doing with this process is deciding whether they will accept the request immediately, removing the need for a lawsuit and all the red tape. If they say no, then the lawyers get involved.
In the end, it's only in front of a judge that real legal decisions can be taken. Lawyers can only argue for one side or another. It makes no sense to demand Google use lawyers unless you hire your own lawyers to argue against them, and the whole point of the process is to avoid that.
My cynical side says "diversity hire" but I doubt it. Surely Google has enough lawyers and would happily pay them $9000/hour in such a momentous case as this. She might have come over from the technical side. I for one would not trust a trained lawyer to explain how the use of a bug tracker to manage requests does not imply defectiveness.
"Can't see any legal training mentioned."
_Most_ law school graduates don't go on to become lawyers - Being a legal specialist M.Law/PhD(Law) is actually a better career choice and the bar is for people who like being showy.
and the bar is for people who like being showy
Ahh. Thank you for the correction. You see I had been under the misapprehension that the bar was simply a dumping ground for unbearable, narcissistic twats devoid of all social skills.
Frankly I am happy with the person not being a lawyer - most people I know who went into law did it as a cushy get rich quick career that was far easier than a "hard subject" like physics etc.
Impartial and thoughtful appraisal of the evidence is (IMHO) more important than lawyer training / career.
They can always wheel in an actual lawyer for court of law* stuff.
Rememmber they are courts of law, not courts of justice (with apols to Billy Bragg)
Frankly I am happy with the person not being a lawyer - most people I know who went into law did it as a cushy get rich quick career that was far easier than a "hard subject" like physics etc.
How to get Rich Quick using Science
Step 1: Learn physics
Step 2: Use physics to separate rich lawyers body with their money
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit
As far as I know, "lawyer" is not a protected term in the UK so anyone can call themselves a lawyer. Just be careful not to call yourself a "solicitor" unless you're currently on the roll. There are very few officially protected terms in the UK but "solicitor" is one of them. I'm not sure there's even a specific rule against calling yourself a "barrister" just because you self-identify as one apart from the general rules against fraud and deception, though obviously they won't let you represent someone else in court just because you self-identify as a "barrister".
It sounds like the lawyers agreed to the deletion request, then a real human (with some actual domain knowledge of the subject of the request) just could not stand to be party to an obvious injustice and bounced it back. This sounds like common sense - and will therefore stop immediately.
@Missing Semicolon
It's easy to speculate in the total absence of concrete facts.
Maybe Legal caved to "reputation management" scum and covered up reports of gross professional misconduct that should never be forgotten.
Maybe the guy is an influential right-winger seeking to clear his name after years of government persecution, and some radical lefty "engineer" overruled Legal out of "moral duty" to censor "fascists". I see a lot of videos alleging such things in the UK, where the obvious crackdown on free speech lends credence to such allegations. Hopefully I'm being circumspect enough to get past the moderators here. :)
Maybe it's one of each.
It'll be interesting to see the the facts when they inevitably leak. I can just imagine the outrage.
It sounds like the lawyers agreed to the deletion request, then a real human (with some actual domain knowledge of the subject of the request) just could not stand to be party to an obvious injustice and bounced it back.
Sounds like wishful thinking...
A real human? Working at Google?
"It sounds like..."
It's not.
There are two requests here.
One came on paper from Carter-Fuck, and was dealt with by an actual lawyer., with responses on paper and ending up in court. Other than that, there's no details on what happened.
The other was through the online form, which is what most of the detail in the article comes from. While one of the teams involved has "legal" in it's title, it's not a team of lawyers.
> No. Feel free to educate yourself...
I think you need to read the two sentences carefully and consider their juxtapositioning, the first deals with a rhetorical question that the author knows that is obviously not currently the case* and highlights the mindset of those opportunists who would use this directive to avail themselves of a criminal past as implied by the second sentence.
*when you open the Tipex to history it has a nasty habit of spilling all over the page. Truthful facts should never be rubbed out. It's Google today, who next tomorrow ?
Which again shows a lack of knowledge - because the RTFB is not unlimited.
NT1 and NT2 could ask it exactly because their convictions were below a threshold, and an actual law allows them not to disclose them - and it doesn't matter how despicable they could be, or how much inclined to commit those crimes again, or do you believe we should institutionalize pre-crime?
And it's not up to Google to decide what the threshold is.
What I don't understand is why this even is something Google has to do. Google doesn't create the web pages that list the factual misdemeanours. If the RTBF requestor has a problem with the pages, shouldn't the requestor take it up with the web pages? Once the page is down, Google no longer finds it and the results disappear from the index (although not the Wayback machine).
If the "offending" web page is factually correct and still there, why should Google cease to provide it as a result?
Or does the RTBF also apply to physical court records etc.?
Apparently, it's not having the information online that is forbidden, it's making it easy to find.
First you put it in a locked cabinet. Then later, you put the cabinet in a disused lavatory. After a few years, you add the sign about the leopard.
MIke Timbers,
Simply put, the world has changed. In the olden days, before that thar modern internet (when we had to make our own entertainment) this mostly sorted itself out.
The local paper reported on your indiscretion perhaps. And then all copies of said paper were turned into wrappers for fish and chips. Or used to pack boxes for people moving house.
By the time the conviction was spent, there was nobody to remermber it, unless they headed off to the local library, or a newspaper library/archive and started searching through microfiche records. I've done this researching a new business venture for a client, and they were not easy to search or well indexed.
Nowadays though, the paper may have digitised their archive. Or have had their website going long enough that your case is on there.
And we have Google. Hence the choice was changing the rehabilitation of offendors act, censoring thee actual records, or making Google only put those in searches if you were specifically looking for them. So a general search on a person's name shouldn't bring spent convictions up - due to the right to be forgotten.
Because a law was created to avoid generic search engines can slap a scarlet letter onto people for their whole life - read Hawthorn, please. And read what the actual Law says, even if you're a Google Groupie.
And the spirit of the law is not to delete historical records - even factually inaccurate ones-, is just to avoid any Peeping Tom to look easily into anybody's past with the help of the Big Peeper, which could also return utterly inaccurate data, being not mandated to keep accurate and updated records like other archives are.
There are a lot of publicly accessible archives which aren't indexed for general searches - you have to consult them explicitly, and maybe register to do so.
It's funny how readers here are very aware and worried about their privacy, especially when it comes to data on their smartphones, but want to know everything about others, especially on matters the Law explicitly forbids. Lots of Puritans, here... and like Puritans, hypocrites.
Just, beware of what Google could index tomorrow....
"What I don't understand is why this even is something Google has to do. "
The CJEU decided that Google was processing data, which makes them a data processor under EU data protection law. One of the things a data processor has to do is ensure that the retention of any personal data it is storing or processing is justified on the grounds of relevancy, accuracy, proportionality and it is not kept for longer than is necessary for the purpose it was originally obtained. The CJEU felt that in the case of the Google Spain case, Google failed on the relevancy and proportionality tests, and thus they were found to be retaining the data concerning Snr Gonzalez longer than was necessary for Google's purposes (ie indexing the internet). In theory, the CJEU judgment only applies to Google within the European Union, meaning that Google.com could continue to list the links to the sites containing the facts about Snr Gonzalez's past activities. In contrast the Canadian Supreme Court recently gave a judgment which required Google to delist certain links on a worldwide basis. That matter is still not resolved as Google is trying to find a way to get the decision reversed. https://www.wired.com/story/google-fights-canada-order-global-search-results/
Search engines and newspapers (and many other online media) do not operate on the same legal grounds. Of course anyone could sue a newspaper for mentioning their name in a certain context. Some people do and they often win it, too (particularly in the UK with its infamously poor press). That said, newspapers etc. do also have an extensive legal protection where they are allowed to print information about someone, as long as it is true.
Search engines, on the other hand, are not publishers. They are privately owned databases of information where the operators decides what data they make available and how. Google famously uses secret algorithms to decide what parts of that database they show. The SEO industry's raison D'être is that they try to second guess that algorithm.
The interesting part is that a search engine doesn't only store data about where a certain store is located or what the name of someone's pet hamster is, it also stores information about actual people. And that is where privacy protection comes in. Normally the rules on storing information about people are quite strict (at least within the EU). One could argue that search engines are actually operating under some kind of derogation by storing information about people without their consent, without having to prove they are reliable custodians of the information, without required procedures on disclosure on what they store etc.
The RTBF provides people with at least a very basic tool to prevent easily available damaging personal information wrecking their lives. And no, it doesn't really protect the bad guys. If you are 'important' enough to potentially have a Wikipedia page about you then RTBF is not going to help you.
"Some people do and they often win it, too (particularly in the UK with its infamously poor press). "
I wouldn't call the UK press "poor". I'm no fan of the Murdoch papers, but I don't like Fox much either, but they do manage to occasionally hold someone to account. Private Eye, the Guardian and Vulture Central manage to employ actual journalists who bother to do actual reporting on real issues, that do sometimes hold those in power accountable.
That the paradise papers etc get published and most people care more about what's happening in bake off/strictly/football isn't about bad journalism, it's about a public who don't care that those in power are robbing us blind, and enabling criminals by allowing legal methods to hide your assets.
"That said, newspapers etc. do also have an extensive legal protection where they are allowed to print information about someone, as long as it is true."
The UK has some of the strictest libel/slander laws, for which the only protection (for anyone, not just the press) is the truth. IANAL, but as I understand it the USA has no libel laws, only defamation. So you can lie about someone, and be sued only if the lie caused demonstrable damage, and only have to compensate for that damage. You can still publish a lie.
Googles internal process is just another system, like the legal system.
Individuals have little choice but to hop around trying to avoid turning wheels turning them into a smear unless they have money, power or influence.
If you're really lucky after setting the wheels moving that they clank about for a bit like a Pee-wee machine before doing spitting out dust.
It's the nature of systems. They are useful, but we've become to eager to thoughtlessly set them up.
It's not the machines at fault, but the operators, owners, etc.
Only initially. Once set up, the owner soon becomes as much a slave to it as everyone else. If it's broken, they refuse to do anything for fear of making things worse, while never admitting it is broken.
There's too much 'we have a procedure in place to deal with this' self-satisfaction. Doesn't matter if the procedure is ill-designed, broken or spits every third 'customer' into the inner workings to be bitten by the turning teeth and bounced off the wheels like a pingball, 'cause there's a procedure....
I am not particularly defending anyone, let alone Google, but that article seems unnecessarily sarcastic.
"Google also have lawyers on standby to scrutinise RTBF requests as well. Just in case those definitely-not-prescriptive rules aren't clear enough, you see."
That seems reasonable. As mentioned, it's not a legal process yet, but may need legal input.
" internal case management and correspondence tool, imaginatively named Cases"
It's got to be called something.
"Google also have lawyers on standby to scrutinise RTBF requests as well. Just in case those definitely-not-prescriptive rules aren't clear enough, you see."
I dunno, the bouncing back and forth treating the issue like a debatable bug/feature problem seems inefficient - probably intentionally so like a child dragging heels to dentist/barber/school.
Buganizer is Google's tracking tool for just about everything. Presumably, it started out for bug tracking, but fairly quickly branched out. There is a required selection for things like bug/feature/process.
It might not be the best tool for RTBF requests, but I don't know that it would make sense to set up a different tool just for such a purpose.
Anyone's name and (at least here in the States) and you'll get tons of sites who (for a fee) will display your public record... crimes, DOB, spouse(s), etc. Basically anything that's part of the public record. So "delisting" will remove all those links? Or just the "News" article links? Then if you really wanted to check someone out, just go to the local paper's website and use their article search.
I somehow don't think that having Google de-list these two "gentlemen" will solve their problem since there's so many other ways to find them.