France Tells Google To Remove "Right To Be Forgotten" Search Results Worldwide 381
An anonymous reader writes: France's data protection authority rejected Google's appeal to limit how a European privacy ruling may be applied worldwide. Since the European Court ruling last year Google has handled close to 320,000 requests, but only de-lists the links on European versions of its sites. "Contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the C.N.I.L. to apply French law extraterritorially," the agency said in a statement.
Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Interesting)
With China being a MUCH bigger market and all, I could see Google just outright leaving France if it came down to it. Maybe Jacques Chirac would finally get his wish of a French owned search engine.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
It makes sense. The Right To Be Forgotten is one of those things that just can't be enforced well, which also runs counter to most other countries' ideas about fundamental rights. It is in every way censorship. If Google complies then it puts them in a bad position forever, and also puts other web search engines (even non-search sites) in a bad position as well. We'll see how well liberté works if the internet is blocked at the borders.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Insightful)
Another problem I'm having with this is that when you look at the way other countries handle information they don't like (that is, national firewalls) why is it that France doesn't just step up to the plate and create a GFW around their own border routers to prevent their citizens from accessing undesirable Google pages? Why is it Google's responsibility to make sure that French citizens can't see what their government doesn't want them to see?
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They should absolutely leave France. Individual EU countries have some extremely bizarre and authoritarian rules. If each and every one of them can apply them extra-nationally, then we have an intractable problem.
For example: Sweden forbids communication of the race of criminals in their press. A muslim man rapes a white woman? The race of the attacker is protected by the state.
Can Sweden enforce this anti-free-press ruling extra-nationally? What if they can?
The only answer is to leave said little fi
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Ridiculous. There is no such law forbidding communication of the race in Sweden. What exist are volontary guidelines in the press to avoid mentioning race, religion, sexual orientation, etc, UNLESS it is relevant.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You know Muslim is not a race, right?
Re: (Score:3)
You are extrapolating way beyond what is possible. This ruling is only possible for things covered by European data protection rules, not random laws from individual member states.
In any case, Google is beholden to US laws. If it gets a DMCA request it has to act, even if the site is in the EU and someone is searching for it on an EU TLD. Users in Europe regularly see notices about DMCA take-downs having removed search results when using their local Google sites. So if Google has to obey US law because it d
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't most if not all EU countries signed treaties with the USA that allows the DMCA and equivalent laws in the signatory countries to apply to everyone that signed the treaties? I am pretty sure at least that Germany and the USA have a treaty for that one and if something is taken down by a DMCA complaint in the USA it is also removed for Germany at least because of a treat that the USA and Germany signed.
That is NOT the same as USA law applying world wide.
Re: (Score:2)
What agreements exist go both ways. If EU data protection laws say material must be removed, then the US will comply if it wants the EU to also respect its DMCA notices.
In actual fact the DMCA has no power in the EU. I regularly receive, occasionally mock and often ignore them.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not how laws and treaties work.
They are over specific issues. If the USA and EU countries have laws about copyright and DMCA type laws then those would be enforced and it would have nothing to do with data protection laws.
I don't know if the EU and the USA have treaties for data protection laws that cover this kind of issue.
I know I can say things in the USA that are illegal in many EU countries and the USA won't deport for that ever. Very few laws are respected internationally.
Re: (Score:3)
What if a Christian rapes a white woman? Is the race of the attacker still protected?
Re: (Score:2)
Not really because sexual exploitation of white girls by Muslim men is a problem in the United Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Now I don't believe for one minute that all Muslim men are engaged or even condone such activities, but pussyfooting around the issue is what allowed it to go on for so long.
Do Muslim men of an Asian background target white women to rape? The answer is unfortunately yes.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair, there is actually some sanity to the French ruling.
Putting aside the argument about whether people like the level of data protection citizens in Europe get or not, the fact is that Google breached European data protection law - that is not in doubt, that is what the original "right to be forgotten" ruling is about - I put right to be forgotten in quotes, because none of this has anything to do with the right to be forgotten, that's a new thing that's being written and not even in law yet, quite why Google and the media are desperate to get that wrong all the fucking time I've no idea, but it is what it is.
Google's breach was purely about the European Data Protection Directive and it's national implementations, given that we know Google breached European law in this area, it's also worth pointing out that Google should not have had this personal data in the first place. Under the Data Protection Directive, simply censoring it in one jurisdiction is not sufficient remedy, the law is clear, if Google is informed that it has data that is incorrect, no longer relevant, and it holds that data under no protective clause (e.g. law enforcement), then it must correct or remove this data - there's no "Oh it's okay, we've moved it offshore to America" - that in itself is illegal if it shouldn't be holding the data in the first place.
This isn't just about Google, ALL companies wishing to operate in Europe and hold personal data fall under the exact same set of rules, it's only Google that seems to have a problem with it for whatever reason. But right or wrong, the fact is that simply censoring search results jurisdiction by jurisdiction was clearly never a valid legal remedy to the problem. It's not surprising that a court has pointed this out to Google - Google needs to understand that if it wants to operate in Europe, then any personal data it holds on Europeans must be protected to the exact same standards as every other company in Europe is expected to and largely does treat it. Oddly, I notice Google puts a blanket note saying some results may be censored on ANY search for a name on Google whether results are censored or not. It's odd that they do that when say, they only list DMCA takedown notices where a search result brings one up.
Honestly, the fact Google is so alone in desperately fighting this one I'm genuinely beginning to wonder if there's some truth in the conspiracy theories about Google being an NSA data harvesting tool. The massively organised propaganda campaign it's creating on this one, whilst every other company operating in Europe manages to deal with the law without any issue is weird to say the least.
I think you mean GMF. (Score:2)
... why is it that France doesn't just step up to the plate and create a GFW around their own border routers to prevent their citizens from accessing undesirable Google pages?
I think you mean GMF. To be correctly French requires a name in French... "Grande Muraille de Feu".
Re: (Score:3)
Another problem I'm having with this is that when you look at the way other countries handle information they don't like (that is, national firewalls) why is it that France doesn't just step up to the plate and create a GFW around their own border routers to prevent their citizens from accessing undesirable Google pages? Why is it Google's responsibility to make sure that French citizens can't see what their government doesn't want them to see?
You've got it completely backwards. This isn't about keeping people in France from seeing something.
France is trying to protect their citizens' right to privacy / right to be forgotten / data rights globally instead of just in the EU (where they are protected by EU law).
Google doesn't want to do this because they want to sell EU people (including French people) data as a product.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Some details would help your case...
If the "right to be forgotten" applied to Google's cache of pages when those pages no longer exist, then I could concede to that provision. IE. Google shouldn't be maintaining an archive of (probably copyrighted) pages indefinitely for its own gain, especially once those pages go away, and then, even moreso, once someone specifically asks that those pages go away.
However, I don't think that's exactly what's happening. IMO, like the RIAA cases, the claims should go to the
Re: (Score:2)
Why shouldn't they keep a cache if the law elsewhere allows? I presume the internet archive keeps a copy. I presume thousands of people have copies in their browser caches. Once public always public.
Re: (Score:2)
You makes an interesting point here.
There is no "good" way to erase something on Internet. Hunting individual sites, caches, etc is known to be ineffective, hard, and often just impossible. Removing the links that lead to this content is effective, but we could question how [un]fair and [un]wise it is, endlessly. I have no strong opinion on this.
However, the motive that lead the french CNIL (which is an independant organism) to fight google on this point has little to do with some government agenda, I'm pre
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the claims should go to the source (ie. the person hosting the resource/info). If they can't get them to remove it, then tough titties
Data protection laws in the EU don't work like that. Google provides a service that allows you to research individuals by typing in their name. Other companies that do that have been regulated for many decades, e.g. credit reference agencies. It was never the case that the source of information had to remove it, e.g. a newspaper that reported on an arrest (which did not produce a conviction) or a bankruptcy. It was always the case that companies who provide a service for collecting and supplying this inform
Re: (Score:2)
It makes sense. The Right To Be Forgotten is one of those things that just can't be enforced well, which also runs counter to most other countries' ideas about fundamental rights.
Citation needed.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Funny)
Citation needed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There you go :D .
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Google is a search engine, it should not be liable to the content it indexes. The "right to be forgotten" as applies to say Facebook makes sense, if you close your account you have the right that all content about you and of you is deleted. What google is handling is not data about people, it's data about publicly available web sites. If a news outlet reports falsely about you, bring it up to them (slander and libel laws). But articles that are truthful a few years in the past should not be magically delist
Re: (Score:3)
The Right To Be Forgotten is one of those things that just can't be enforced well, which also runs counter to most other countries' ideas about fundamental rights.
I think it only runs counter to America's ideas about fundamental rights. Every other country seems to be fine about letting the government control what people can and can't see.
Re: (Score:2)
Does "every other country" mean EU and China only?
Re: (Score:3)
I think it only runs counter to America's ideas about fundamental rights. Every other country seems to be fine about letting the government control what people can and can't see.
Wrong and wrong. The US government regulates what you can see just like every other government. Some documents are confidential or secret, some images (e.g. child pornography) are illegal to possess or view.
Other countries have similar laws, but they also recognize that privacy is a freedom. The US is very big on "negative" freedoms, that is freedom from government interference, freedom from things that prevent you doing or saying what you want to. In particular, the almost absolute right to freedom of spee
Refuting "The Alternate View"... (Score:2)
How about you look at it this in another way. You communicate for years on a certain medium and now someone has managed to make billions from your communications. You never wanted it to be viewed globally and certainly not with an advertisement next to it.
That was before google entered the marketplace. They took what we wrote and sold it as if it was theirs to sell.
Why do you think I am posting as anonymous coward?
To explicitly disclaim ownership, so that anyone who wants to can grab and make billions from your communications by putting an ad next to it? And so that you won't have legal recourse when they take your copyrighted material and sell it as if it's theirs to sell, since you've explicitly disclaimed any non-repudiable ownership on said content by posting as an AC?
Tell me if I'm at all warm with either of those reasons you're posting as an AC... because I don't see how Google would go about indexing password
Re: (Score:2)
Well, just because they lose localized search results doesn't mean another search engine will be successful. It might just mean that their citizens get more generic results, and less links to local businesses.
Ask Spanish publishers how this all works out [arstechnica.com].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm French and I kind of want google to blackout France for like a month.
That'll teach us.
Story is wrong (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The critical text here is: "when offering services in Europe" . No compliance with the directive is needed when offering serivces outside of Europe.
Re:Story is wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
The critical text here is: "when offering services in Europe" . No compliance with the directive is needed when offering serivces outside of Europe.
Next stop:
Google is responsible for policing requests made from VPNs for the French, since it's technologically impossible, but the French really hate VPNs, and are hoping Google will find a way of determining the origin country of a VPN through magic pixie dust...
Allllllllll aaaaaabbbbboarrrrd! The insanity train is about to leave the station, and gaze into its naval! Fasten your seat belts, and keep your head, arms, and legs inside the technology ignorance train, until it comes to a complete stop!
Re: (Score:2)
Allllllllll aaaaaabbbbboarrrrd! The insanity train is about to leave the station, and gaze into its naval!
Yup, and you are the driver. You extrapolated from a clear, narrow ruling that demonstrates an understanding of how the internet works and what is required to comply with the law, into your own crazy fantasy.
Re: (Score:3)
Yup, and you are the driver. You extrapolated from a clear, narrow ruling that demonstrates an understanding of how the internet works and what is required to comply with the law, into your own crazy fantasy.
--The Story so far --
Insane policy: "Right to be forgotten" is technologically feasible ... ]
Google response: Block default Google property from displaying "forgotten" content for users from France
French users workaround: Go to a Google property in another country
French government response: *All* Google properties must not display "forgotten" content for users from France
[
-- Obvious escalation path --
Naive idiot suggestion: Use same IPGIS system as a content blocking signal as is used for web site redirect
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should Google be responsible for Geo-locating request sources etc? That gets nasty quickly with things like VPNs etc.
I think Google should just update their TOS to say if you are in Europe you are not permitted to access Googles search services except via one of our EU based domains.
Then if the French come crying that when someone goes to www.google.com and still gets full search results. Google can just say well we never offered that service in the EU. People doing that are violating our terms of us
Re: (Score:2)
Basically a french court decides what kind a content on the internet a german may look at ?
Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:3)
Google could in protest stop indexing all french pages and then we will see the result.
Re: (Score:2)
Which would result in all French people going to another search engine. If it can't find popular French websites but Bing and Yahoo can, people won't blame that on the French government.
If they don't stand up to France, it'll get worse (Score:2)
If they let France push them around then every nation will come up with some new way to try to push them around. And someday someone might even sue to have an offense against them remembered. How do you deal with things when one country says that recorded history must be erased world-wide and another says it must be preserved world-wide?
Alternately, this would be a great test for how much the people of France want their government interfering with their use of the Internet. There just might be some feedbac
Re: (Score:3)
If France then wishes to prohibit VPNs, they'll raise the ire of both freedom-loving liberals who use VPNs for anon
Also it would hurt them less (Score:2)
China can outright block sites they don't like. France doesn't have the infrastructure to do that, and probably not the laws either. So while Google could have no corporate presence in France, they could still be a usable site in France by virtue of being accessible on the web.
Re: (Score:2)
China can outright block sites they don't like. France doesn't have the infrastructure to do that, and probably not the laws either. So while Google could have no corporate presence in France, they could still be a usable site in France by virtue of being accessible on the web.
You are aware that this has to do with the French not getting the taxes they feel they are owed for contracts negotiated in France, but executed in Ireland, right?
If Google does not come down on this like a ton of bricks as soon as the enforcement starts, who wants to bet that the "fine" will be exactly the amount France feels it is owed on those contracts, despite France having willingly signed on to be an EU member state, with all that entails, regarding civil commercial contracts?
Re: (Score:3)
It seems the French government is only complaining about people within France being able to change too easily from Google.fr to Google.com to get around the censorship.
In other words, if China were to ask the same thing (and they could since Google has decided to go back there), it would demand that the original Daila Lama be removed from all the googles search results of all the countries (when those other googles are being accessed from a Chinese ip geolocation). Technically, this is feasible, but imagine
Re: (Score:2)
Google already has all the infrastructure to enable this kind of geographic blocking. When you go to google.com from the EU, the site isn't served from the US. It is served from the EU, from a server fairly near where you are. Google have massive infrastructure to route requests to geographically close servers to keep latency low, and those servers area all capable of supplying multiple versions of Google's sites.
The court understands this and won't buy any arguments that it's technically difficult or expen
Statement is hogwash (Score:3)
The French Statement is malarkey. "Finally, contrary to what Google has stated, this decision does not show any willingness on the part of the CNIL to apply French law extraterritorially. It simply requests full observance of European legislation by non European players offering their services in Europe." So we're not applying our laws extraterritorially, we're requiring the company to do so if they want to do business here.
To be fair, a lot of other countries have some form of that. But it's still ridic
Re: (Score:2)
With China being a MUCH bigger market and all, I could see Google just outright leaving France if it came down to it. Maybe Jacques Chirac would finally get his wish of a French owned search engine.
One having nothing to do with another.
China wanted Google out, for one thing - and did whatever they had to do to get them to leave.
This is about protecting people's rights under EU data law (but globally) - not about removing people's rights further (i.e. the China scenario)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see a need to leave ALL of Europe. It's just French law that seems to have a problem.
Think of it like how Google simply closed Google News in Spain last year. They didn't need to close it down for all of Europe.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes but it appears that only the French are bonkers enough to think to apply the law world wide.
Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Insightful)
Who do they think they are? Americans?
Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Informative)
It's insightful because America is notorious for applying its own laws extraterritorially, ie inside other countries. American judges truly believe that what they have to say should apply to all people on earth. The French are merely copying the principle. Expect other countries to follow as well. Turnabout is fair play and all that.
Re: Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Funny)
It's insightful because America is notorious for applying its own laws extraterritorially, ie inside other countries. The French are merely copying the principle.
Then maybe France should try becoming the world's superpower, before trying to act like one.
Re: (Score:3)
And yet I doubt you could cite a single incidence of the US applying US law in other countries using the US court system as you have claimed.
You aren't familiar with the US's war on Internet poker?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes but it appears that only the French are bonkers enough to think to apply the law world wide.
They are actually not trying to apply the law world wide. They are saying that it applies to all the search results Google serve to EU users, regardless of the URL used to access that search result (google.fr, google.com, google.xx). It is perfectly possible for Google to geo-fence this, and many large online services do this on a regular basis.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Interesting)
As a European who is generally very fond of the European Union, I'm truly ashamed about this "right to be forgotten". Whenever I see a link removed, I use a proxy to switch to Google US and I've seen countless abuses of the system. Many of the search results that are removed are clearly in the public interest.
I cannot believe that there is no discussion about this at higher levels of the EU. If France got this right world-wide, why not Russia, China, Saudia Arabia, or Nigeria? This regulation makes no sense whatsoever. The judges who decided in favour of it must be mentally retarded.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Informative)
I cannot believe that there is no discussion about this at higher levels of the EU.
The real problem here is that:
(1) They haven't judicially defined what constitutes public interest -- because they can't because it's subjective, and making such a decision would piss everyone off and demonstrate the absurdity of the law. So there's no legal test for yes/no.
(2) France is still being pissy, and this is retaliation for the whole "media thing" that France had hoped to impose on YouTube and Google Play.
(3) They know that they can't win, so they're dragging their feet. It makes the politicians look like they are doing something, without actually having to really do something.
(4) They are laying the groundwork for a closed-door advisor position, whose job will be to write reports and justify why "it doesn't apply in this case" decisions, and then collect their paycheck.
(5) As soon as the problem is closed door, it effectively goes away, because there's no longer any public leverage.
(6) Then the worst that can happen is "an investigation of the department of investigation", which they can pretend takes as long as they want to/can push off the issue, and then conclude that there was no wrongdoing.
Problem solved. Back to business as usual.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:4, Interesting)
This is probably the sort of topic you should add your usual disclaimer about being a Google employee on.
Former Google employee. Also former Apple employee, and former IBM employee, etc..
It's not really relevant, since I'm not saying anything near my NDA, and just expressing an opinion as a private person with a somewhat deeper than normal interest in the workings of cases involving former employers.
> (1) They haven't judicially defined what constitutes public interest -- because they can't because it's subjective, and making such a decision would piss everyone off and demonstrate the absurdity of the law. So there's no legal test for yes/no.
It's decided by a court, so yes there is a legal test. The court will weigh up the possible harm to the person whose personal data is being published against the benefits to society at large.
Sorry, no. The original court decision upholding the validity of the law only said "an overriding public interest". It did not define what constitutes "an overriding public interest", and that was left ambiguous. Just as it became Google's "responsibility" to block the content, it also became Google's "responsibility" to decide what they though a court in each country where the law applies (all of the EU) would likely decide on a particular "forget request".
Note that the criteria thresholds in the U.K. are based on "public persons", and are derived from English Common Law, which is where the UK gets their ideas of what they believe constitutes "libel" and "slander". In France, there are slight differences, since their legal system is largely based on the Napoleonic code. While both of them can historically be traced (eventually) to the Code of Hammurabi, and thus have common roots, the criteria of what is involved in "an overriding public interest" differs between the two nations.
Thus the whole thing is ambiguous in interpretation, and left to a third party, because it's a political third rail between the nations which make up the EU.
So for some random guy with no media exposure who committed fraud 40 years ago, and has been saving puppies, painting rainbows and generally giving up his entire life to make the world a better place ever since, there's no genuine public benefit in publishing that past conviction - it's long expired under law, it's no longer declarable, and there's not the slightest shred of evidence to suggest it's even remotely representative of him today.
Clearly then, he has redeemed himself in the eyes of society, so bringing it up in polite conversation, since people will recognize that themselves, without the need for a law to enforce that It Is Never To Be Mentioned Again. At worst, the person mentioning it will be considered rude and boorish, right?
[...]Google's apparent need to hold irrelevant and out of date personal data falls under, because I can't see one.
Remove it from the original place of publication, or protect it with a robots.txt, and the data will be removed from the next iteration of the index. Good luck with Internet Archive...
> (3) They know that they can't win, so they're dragging their feet. It makes the politicians look like they are doing something, without actually having to really do something.
What do you mean they know they can't win?
I mean that they are trying to argue with a technology that was engineered and implemented to be resilient to disruption. In the Second Gulf War, the U.S. bombed the crap out of communications infrastructure used for Iraqi command and control systems. And their command and control systems stayed up, despite more than half that infrastructure being bombed to oblivion. Because *that's what it's supposed to do*; that's what it was *designed* to do.
Some nation's law requiring information destruction is going to be about as effective at removing the information as the
Re: (Score:3)
Hey look it's our actual Google shill at it again!
Hey dumbass! I left Google in 2013!
Re: (Score:3)
Many of the search results that are removed are clearly in the public interest
The thing is that you don't know on whose request a web page has been removed. You could claim a news story about a murderer is in the public interest, and that murderer has no right to be forgotten. But what if that particular page mentions members of the murderer's family, who are completely innocent of his crime? Maybe it is they who have asked to have the page removed.
So it is not easy to spot obvious abuses of the system, when you don't know the basis for the removal.
Re:Considering how fast Google ditched China (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Can you explain why you think Google should be able to violate an individual's privacy for profit? Or why you should have a right to know about things in an individual's past that are either irrelevant to you or have been deemed by law to have been forgiven and forgotten.
If the EU can impose this world wide, then you are right that other countries may want to as well. That's the nature of doing business in different countries, you have to abide by their laws or leave. I'm not sure why that is surprising to
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You're making many false assumptions. Many of the links that are removed have nothing to do with a person's privacy and are relevant to the public.
For example, some of the links to articles and posts about possible ties of Anna Ardin to CIA-funded institutions have been removed in Europe. You can easily check this. You might think that her privacy is being violated and that she's the victim of a smear campaign. But even if that is so, she is also clearly a person of public interest and her past political af
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the next point someo
Re: (Score:3)
Actually no, as I understand it they are asking for Google to stop misusing other parties' intellectual property, for want of a better phrase.
In the same manner that US corporations have certain rights over their own creative works, and enforce those rights through the DMCA; EU citizens have certain rights over their own personal information, and can now enforce those rights through this so-called "right to be forgotten".
If US-based DMCA takedowns affect more than just Google's US-local domains, and they do
I'm pretty sure the IRS would not give a damn. (Score:3)
With China being a MUCH bigger market and all, I could see Google just outright leaving France if it came down to it. Maybe Jacques Chirac would finally get his wish of a French owned search engine.
Yes, Google should just close up Google Ireland and forget about the European Union altogether.
The IRS would love that.
I'm pretty sure the IRS would not give a damn.
Google is in full compliance with the U.S. law, and the laws of other countries.
While U.S. politicians would like to get their grubby hands on, and spend some of that tasty, tasty money, the IRS merely enforces the U.S. tax code, up to and including the Criminal Investigation division sending special agents out to interview and conduct searches under search warrant, and to participate in arrests with federal law enforcement, should the U.S. Attorney determine th
Next up: China tells Google to censor results (Score:2)
Google: *leaves world's fastest growing market*
Good luck France.
French Law extraterritorially (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's applying it to a French company, Google France SarL. Actually if you look here [sec.gov] you can see that there are quite a few Google companies in the EU, who must obey EU laws.
Re: (Score:2)
If removing the results worldwide isn't apply French Law extraterritorially, what is it?
Does France have the right to protect it's citizens worldwide?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod parent up.
I'm french, and of course I see as a joke the CNIL asking google to remove search result worldwide. But you should be aware that the world knows pretty well US laws for a simple reason : US laws tend to apply worldwide, in a large number of domains (not just technologies).
So, US people whining about losing "sovereignty" by having a french rule being applied worldwide is quite funny.
Back to the real subject of that ruling, what CNIL is trying to achieve here is the right to be forgotten.
Re: (Score:3)
It is, nobody is refuting that. However the US is doing the same.
That's totally bullshit! The U.S. is definitely not applying French Law extraterritorially!
google did it in a wrong way (Score:5, Informative)
Google just removed the results from some local domains (fr, co.uk etc), but left it working for com domain. Basically it means they failed at delisting since EU citizen can still easily avoid it. Instead they should comply by doing some kind of geoip delisting as then they would be really compliant within EU jurisdiction.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: google did it in a wrong way (Score:3)
Why should they? People in France are likely to use Google.fr because it's more relevant (and the correct language).
Should EU courts also be allowed to force companies to filter content when they receive phone calls from within the EU?
If you don't want your citizens viewing content that is not allowed to be served in your county then block it yourself, don't expect others to do your dirty work for you. Fortunately, the people in charge are slowly waking up to the idea that that isn't even remotely possible.
Re: (Score:2)
The fundamental problem here is the French court wants to apply physical geographical boundaries to something happening in virtual non-geographical space. While Google can, with enough work, sort of kind of make that virtual space map to geographical boundaries today, there's no guarantee
Re: (Score:3)
Google just removed the results from some local domains (fr, co.uk etc), but left it working for com domain. Basically it means they failed at delisting since EU citizen can still easily avoid it. Instead they should comply by doing some kind of geoip delisting as then they would be really compliant within EU jurisdiction.
No, I am in France using google.com and searching (for example on myself) I get this message at the bottom of the results page:
Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.
Every other country will ask Google to censor the (Score:2)
Typical sensationalist Slashdot subjectline (Score:5, Informative)
The French do not try to apply them worldwide.
They want Google to apply them to all searched from France regardless of the domain name. Today you can just type in google.com or any other national domain and bypass the law.
Re: (Score:3)
So what they want is a regioncoded Internet where every company deliver a different internet depending on from which country you come from ?
Sorry, but IP-adresses and the web protocol don't contain any information about which country someone is from.
Re: (Score:3)
So the French government blames Google for the fact that their population contains evil, evil lawbreakers actively seeking a way around whatever restraints on free speech the CNIL may, in its infinite wisdom, decide to use to "protect" the French people?
Ford make it possible for me to exceed the speed limit. That doesn't make Fo
Dear France (Score:3)
Complying with your request in this manner is rather hard due to other laws of other countries we do business in that we actually do have to comply with (unlike, say, yours). Instead we did the next best thing and removed all French results worldwide. We hope this satisfies you.
--signed, Google.
Go limp (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd go limp: "We'll comply with your request. Please send us the contact information for the service that you'll accept as authoritative for whether or not a request from a particular IP address originates in France or not. We'll also require a binding agreement that the determination of this service cannot be contested by either Google or the French government, and that if any third party demonstrates that the service made an incorrect determination use of that service will be discontinued and the French government shall not demand compliance from Google until the French government has selected a new authority. Until we are in receipt of this information and agreement, Google will unfortunately be unable to operate the French-localized Google site and will be unable to serve search results for France or any French entity or person. Have a nice day.".
A list of right to be forgotten links .. (Score:4, Interesting)
List of BBC web pages which have been removed from Google's search results [bbc.co.uk]
"Google
Re: (Score:2)
That BBC page is interesting. You can see that there are lots of pages about criminals, where people who are not criminals are also mentioned. Since serious crimes that are never considered spent can't be the grounds for a Right to be Forgotten request, we can be fairly certain that the innocent people were the ones who requested removal when searching for their name.
Is that really a bad thing? They didn't do anything wrong, and don't want to be associated with the criminal. It might affect their employment
Re: The world needs the U.S. more... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing you Americans aren't arrogant imperialist bastards, cause if you were, some people might take your sentiment the wrong way.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
'France needs Google more than Google needs France'.
Google makes around a billion dollars a year from French users.
This is only a percent or so or US profits.
The question is not if france needs google more than google needs france.
It's if google needs a billion dollars more than the slight reduction in profit elsewhere due to users boycotting google.
Re: (Score:2)
If "slight reduction" is more than 1%, then it's cheaper to pull out of France.
Re: (Score:2)
Certainly. And do you really think 1% of users care that much?
Re: (Score:3)
Care to inform us what we need you for? To destabilize countries politically or economically, I'm unsure which function you serve is more important.
I suspect you are a unique, special flower. (Score:2)
The very moment I had a European based alternative to Google I would jump ship.
I suspect you are a unique, special flower.
If you disagree, and believe other Europeans feel the same, and are right, you have your startup idea.
If you are wrong, you are a unique, special flower with a failed startup.
I say "Go for it!"...
Re: (Score:2)
Privacy is nothing to do with it. Convictions, for example, are a matter of public record.
I know because I was a naughty boy doing too much vroom-vroom in my pap-pap once and it was in the local paper. There's no doubt copies of it around somewhere - certainly the paper itself will have an archive as will some libraries. Wouldn't be surprised if my gran kept one. If I was in France could I demand they all be shredded?
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps that's one reason for abc.xyz
Re: (Score:2)
Otherwise I just tell them politely to fuck off and come back with a court order, if it's reg
Re: (Score:2)
This is NOT about privacy! People remove evidence of their past crimes, as well as past political statements and affiliations from their search results!
I encourage you to investigate further what is being removed, so you can come to a conclusion by yourself.
France is not broke. (Score:2)
France is irrational and broke. Pull out, because you should never squabble with fools; they'll bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
France is not broke.
It sells a lot of electricity to other countries that were stupid, and dismantled, or are in the process of dismantling, their civil nuclear power infrastructure, without the replacements already being online. France gets a lot of money from other countries for the electricity it provides them.
Re: (Score:2)
Many of the EU member states had aspirations of world domination at various times in history, sadly ,for them, none of them worked out.
Ask Greece whether or not Germany controls their economy because they were stupid enough to go onto the Euro, and, recently, stupid enough to stay on the Euro when they had a possible exit that wouldn't cost them EU membership.
Some EU member states *still* have aspirations of world domination; they've just quit using tanks and guns to try and get there...