Posts by SleepyJohn

We have more to fear from the EU than from Google

Google makes money out of knowing what I like? So does my local fishmonger. The latter saves me from shipping out on an Icelandic trawler for weeks to get dinner, and the former saves me from camping outside the British Library for weeks to get information. Both provide my needs and I benefit from both knowing my needs.

So I am not entirely sure what the problem is here. Perhaps those who hate Google so much would prefer some sort of socialist search engine controlled by the EU, returning only results that "further the cause of European integration"; just as the diktats of its sleazy Kangaroo Court are instructed to do. Doubtless it would also track the whereabouts of anyone daring to criticise the EU or its self-anointed bosses.

Should Google ever become even half as overbearing, incompetent, corrupt and destructive of our freedoms as the EU we can just tell it to take a hike, without fear of being dragged off to a dungeon in Transylvania with no evidence of wrong-doing, no presumption of innocence, and no right to a trial. Such fear will soon be a reality in the EU.

Google may have its faults but do we really think an EU-devised 'solution' has even the remotest chance of resolving them? People who don't actually know what a web browser is are given half a dozen to choose from? Then faced with wondering why all those websites want to store American biscuits? My chickens would be embarrassed to be so stupid.

The only thing that trumps the EU's stupidity is its deceitful authoritarianism. I would put a lot more trust in Google, personally.

Manna from Spain for a power-hungry EU

None of this has anything to do with a silly Spaniard trying to pretend his house was not repossessed, nor any spurious need to protect the public from access to 'out-of-date' or 'irrelevant' information (who defines those terms, I wonder?).

This is the EU's well-trained political poodle court setting a dangerous precedent; one that will enable the unelected, unaccountable EU bosses to exert a gradual, but ever-increasing censorship of all information available to the luckless EU peasantry. They have probably been scouring Google for years looking for such an excuse. Quelle ironie!

There is an acceptable case for even the EU's quasi-government to discuss with search engines the issue of relative importance of results. However, ordering them to be removed, on the dubious grounds that some person does not like what they say, carries the distinctly foul stench of a corrupt ulterior motive on the part of what can best be described charitably as a barely-concealed tinpot oligarchy.

Google doesn't invent information: it finds and displays it, just as the BBC finds information and displays it. Will the BBC be next to have the information it displays censored by the EU? Ordered not to display anything that the EU deems 'irrelevant' or 'out-of-date'? Anything critical of the EU perhaps?

Ridiculous, you all laugh, it is too big a step. Even if taken in small, emotive, ethically unarguable increments? This is the usual EU method for forcing through unpalatable proposals, a technique copied almost verbatim from sleazy Encyclopedia salesmen.

Eg: Free multi-volume encyclopedia, with a small charge for regular updates to ensure that your adorable children get the best possible start in life. What parent could refuse? Even when a few moments' thought shows that it will cost them more money than their car. A few moments thought will also show that this EU ruling will cost the people more rights than it bestows.

While the BBC is paid millions of pounds by the EU for propaganda?

This seems rather fishy to me. The BBC exhibits blatant pro-EU bias while receiving millions from it in 'unspecified grants', and the EU demands subservient allegiance in return for its handouts. So why is the BBC apparently cocking a snook at the EU's latest puerile, ill-thought-out ramblings? Something does not add up. I wonder if the bosses know about this?

BBC tries to hide EU funding

"Should have gone to Specsavers"

Anyone who cannot see this as opening the door for the EU to control what is shown to EU citizens searching the web "should have gone to Specsavers".

Yes, I now live in New Zealand, having rumbled many years ago what the inoffensive-sounding 'European Economic Community' was really up to. I can now, as I once could in the UK, vote for those who make my laws; and hold to account those who implement them.

I can stick my head above the parapet without fear of a secret Corpus Juris inquisition, or arrest without reason by the sinister EUROGENDFOR. I can even criticise my Government and not be charged with blasphemy.

And I can search the internet without being restricted to what is effectively becoming an EU-controlled subset of the truth. I can, for instance, find this gem from http://www.quarterly-review.org/?p=1198 :

"... once the Eurogendarmerie are inside the country, no British government can ever order them to leave".

If you are not alarmed at this prospect of a heavily-armed, secretive EU militarised police force charged with putting down civil unrest, and totally beyond the control of your elected Government, with the power to drag you off to a prison somewhere on the Continent and keep you there indefinitely without trial or evidence of wrong-doing, then it is a new brain you need, not just glasses.

The EU's utter contempt for democracy and the rights of the innocent is far more likely to cause you grief than any refusal by Google to hide aspects of the truth that you don't like.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement from these three

Well, none of this has tempted me to start watching again. I shall continue to sit and look at my cat; which thankfully does not display the inanity of one from Cheshire, or Clara.

It was not just Dotcom at fault

Internet Mana was thrown out by the electorate because it was seen clearly as a corrupt and cynical manipulation of the democratic weakness inherent in MMP, solely to give Hone Harawira a pot of money to finance his personal ambitions, and Kim Dotcom a power base from which to personally attack John Key. Harawira was just as responsible for this travesty as Dotcom, and fortunately it backfired spectacularly, giving both of them precisely what they deserved.

'Middle NZ' supported John Key as they clearly see him, whatever his faults, as a safe pair of hands, capable of adding up 2 + 2 and getting 4.

Hiding information NOT an impediment to Free Speech? Seriously?

Dear God, is there really anyone on the planet who genuinely believes the EU is enforcing this for the benefit of the peasantry? In a democracy any idiotic ruling like this will be mocked, twisted and generally made to look as stupid as it is, and the authorities will be forced to reassess its obvious shortcomings.

Not in the EU. Their attitude is: "How dare you question our rulings!" Or in Eurospeak: "I will not let them abuse this crucial ruling to stop us from opening the digital single market for our companies and putting in place stronger protection for our citizens." (Er, Google is not stopping you doing any of those things.)

The arrogance and deceit of that emotive Eurobabble alone should be cause for concern, never mind the obvious stupidity and deliberately indefinable vagueness of the ruling. Any criticism of the EU or its unelected bosses can now be deemed not only blasphemous but also out-of-date, irrelevant or not-in-the-public-interest, and thus be hidden from the people.

And that does NOT pose a danger to Free Speech? Commenters here would rather risk political subjugation than rejection by a stupid employer over an ancient photo on the web? Seriously?

And we thought straight bananas were ridiculous

The notion that people can 'own' publicly available information about themselves makes straight bananas look quite sensible. I feel I am living in a heightened Monty Python sketch about commonsense lying flat on its back with its feet in the air.

The only real thing in this tidal wave of emotive, factless twaddle about 'out-of-date, irrelevant, unimportant, not-in-the-public-interest' and other supremely indefinable types of information, is the certainty that the final say on what EU peasants will be permitted to know lies with the EU's politicised 'Supreme Court'. Anyone who is not concerned by that should wipe the stardust from their eyes and grow some brain cells.

Google is right to make a mockery of this dangerous nonsense. Not only does it hand a powerful censorship tool to the EU, but it also degrades the extraordinary, free service that search engines provide for ordinary people, even those consumed with such hatred over them making money that they have lost sight of what life was like without one.

Er, what was this article actually about?

There has been some interesting discussion in the comments here, but I still have no clue what the point of the article was. I moved to New Zealand a few years ago and have finally changed all my electrical plugs to ones that fit the NZ sockets. This means I no longer have to buy plug adapters from a specialist UK supplier, and can just pop into any local store for a standard plug.

Perhaps I should add a thousand or so words to that paragraph and sell The Reg a breathless article about freetards having to face the fact that UK plug manufacturers, although I am no longer personally beholden to them, have not been specifically banned from making and selling plugs that will fit into my standard sockets.

Ludicrous bureaucratic stupidity?

At which point in time does history become 'out of date' I wonder? Will all events in the EU now have to come stamped with a 'Use By' date? What will the Hindus make of that?

Someone will have to be given control over what in the EU is deemed 'out-of-date', 'irrelevant' or 'not in the public interest', and thus be denied to the public. I wonder who that will be? Google? Or a court specifically instructed by the EU to make decisions that will increase the EU's power over the people?

Despite outward appearances, this is not ludicrous bureaucratic stupidity; it is carefully-crafted groundwork for a censorship regime, masquerading as well-meant lunacy. The political muppets that strut on the EU stage may be bumbling idiots but those pulling their strings are not. Anyone who seriously believes this has been done for the benefit of the people should stop taking the soma.

WHY do it?

Google are vilified for showing links and for not showing links, for making judgements and for not making judgements, for informing journalists and for not informing journalists. They are vilified for obeying this fatuous ruling and for not obeying it, and are now being vilified for showing up the unutterable idiocy of it. They are even vilified for efficiently running a business that provides the peoples of Europe with a hugely valuable, entirely free service without which most of them could barely operate. Vilified? Really?

This shambolic, insoluble mess was caused by the ECJ, not by Google, and it is the ECJ that should be asked - WHY do it (when strongly advised not to by your own legal team)? EU citizens should question the agenda of this so-called 'court' that now has absolute power over what publicly available information they will effectively be permitted to see.

There is a big picture here that is considerably more important to the average citizen than the stupidity of a 30 year-old who actually wants to work for someone stupid enough to judge him on a teenage indiscretion.

Why did the ECJ make this ruling?

As the ECJ was apparently advised by its expert legal team not to do this, one must ask oneself why it did. There may be a clue in the Maastricht Treaty, which instructed the ECJ to 'return verdicts that further the cause of European integration'.

Whether there is any connection between that and the provision of a legal mechanism to control the people's access to information (albeit with an ostensibly high moral purpose for the benefit of some of said people), I don't know. However, the fact that it is so loosely formulated that it requires the ECJ to interpret it - which seems odd given the expert legal advice it has access to - should be disturbing. Some might think it deliberate rather than incompetent.

I remember when research that Google freely gives me in .001234 milliseconds would have taken weeks of trailing about major city libraries at vast expense. And Google is vilified for earning money by doing that? By metaphorically wandering round the global village reading public noticeboards and making the information easily available to all?

This is a very dangerous, far-reaching ruling made by an authority that appears to be absurdly stupid; but clearly is not. It understands perfectly the hugely powerful control over the dissemination of information that it has effectively given itself, being the final arbiter of any disagreement. Google is right to warn us that our searches, and our writings - indeed, our view of, and interaction with the world - may now be censored by the EU's Supreme Court under the guise of the farcical notion of a "right to be forgotten".

Anyone who thinks Google poses a greater threat to them than the EU should stop taking the soma.

Self-interest? Google?

"And like any powerful corporation, it may have an agenda of self-interest"

And immensely powerful, unelected, unaccountable quasi-governments do not?

Who will be the final arbiter of which historical facts are to be hidden from the peasantry? Because hiding the truth from the people is precisely what this is about, carefully disguised with emotive pandering to ex-students who want to cover up their peccadilloes, and unconvincing assurances that 'matters of public interest will not be affected'. Well, the very court that has just effectively given itself that arbitrary power is the same one that not long ago decreed that any criticism of the EU should be viewed as blasphemy!

I think Google reporting the existence of everything that is on record, together with us having to live with and deal with our own pasts, is a great deal healthier for society than having our reality censored by the dysfunctional, unaccountable and dangerously dictatorial EU. You would have to be blind not to see that the EU oligarchy has its own "agenda of self-interest", and that its ambitions are orders of magnitude more to be feared than Google's.