right to forget – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Apparently Not Too Many People In Europe Care About Having Microsoft's Bing 'Forget' Them

from the bing-is-already-forgotten dept

It’s no secret that Google has a much larger market share than Microsoft’s Bing search engine — especially in Europe where Google has been much more successful than its competitors. However, Bing and other search engines are still subject to the terrible EU Court of Justice ruling on the right to be forgotten, which has resulted in Google removing a bunch of links. As we noted, Google was flooded with requests, and had to set up a process and staff to handle them all — something it hasn’t done a very good job with so far.

So, what’s Microsoft doing? Well, it’s taking it’s time, but is promising to get a request form similar to Google’s up. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to have to hire a very big staff to do so, because it appears that Microsoft’s biggest concern in Europe may be more that it’s been forgotten by Europeans. Almost no one is asking Bing to forget them:

When Google released its web form on May 30, for instance, it received about 12,000 requests within the first 24 hours. Microsoft is thought to have received fewer than 20 requests that day.

Ouch. That’s almost insulting. Hell, even we received a request under that ruling (though a bogus one).

Filed Under: bing, europe, right to forget
Companies: google, microsoft

Former NSA Lawyer Asks Google To 'Forget' All Of Techdirt's Posts About Him

from the making-a-point-about-bad-laws dept

Former NSA counsel and surveillance/security state hypeman Stewart Baker has had just about enough of Techdirt making “distorted claims” about his statements for the “purposes of making money.” To counter this, he’s sent a “right to be forgotten” request to Google stating the following:

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=stewart+baker

Reason this link violates the right to be forgotten:

This link is inappropriate. It compiles stories making many distorted claims about my political views. Political views are a particularly sensitive form of personal data. The stories are written by men who disagree with me, and they are assembled for the purpose of making money for a website, a purpose that cannot outweigh my interest in controlling the presentation of sensitive data about myself.

Baker’s certainly not hoping for Techdirt’s posts on him to be de-listed (although I imagine he’d indulge in a chuckle or two if they went down). He’s mocking the ridiculousness of the “right to be forgotten” ruling Google is now attempting to comply with. He has submitted other requests as well over such things as outdated photos and “inaccurate” statements as the kickoff to an informal “hack” of a bad law.

I feel bad for Google, which is stuck trying to administer this preposterous ruling. But that shouldn’t prevent us from showing quite concretely how preposterous it is.

I propose a contest. Let’s all ask for takedowns. The person who makes the most outrageous (and successful) takedown request will win a “worst abuse of privacy law” prize, otherwise known as a Privy.

Stewart’s takedown request targeting Techdirt is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but it does highlight the sort of abuse that should be expected when government bodies attempt to force the internet to bend to their will. Granting a “right to be forgotten” pretty much ensures that a majority of the requests will be no more legitimate than Baker’s.

Multiple advocates for the law have compared it with the infamous DMCA takedown notice, something that has also been routinely abused. But at least the DMCA takedown carries with it the (almost never enforced) charge of perjury for issuing bogus takedowns. The RTBF form simply asks for a copy of the submitter’s identification. There’s nothing in it to discourage abuse of the system. If you don’t like something someone has said about you on the web, just fill out a webform.

While we at Techdirt disagree with most of what Stewart Baker says, at least his position on privacy remains consistent. His “Privys” — an “award” given to the worst or most hypocritical abuser of privacy laws — have generally been awarded to worthy recipients, usually people who tend to think these laws exist to save them from their own embarrassments.

As for the “right to be forgotten,” it appears as though requests may be forwarded to Chilling Effects. On June 6th, this test post showed up in the database.

A request has been made to remove one or more links from a search page under European “right to be forgotten” rules, following Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Espanola de Proteccion de Datos, Mario Costeja Gonzalez.

The body of the post contains nothing but the word “TEST” but this seems to indicate that an attempt will be made to publish takedown attempts. At this point, it’s impossible to say how much information will be redacted, or if the European Commission will even allow this sort of transparency. Google is also toying with appending messages to the bottom of search results pages indicating that link(s) may have been removed due to “RTBF” requests. If this works like DMCA requests do, then a link to Chilling Effects database will be provided. These measures won’t necessarily deter abuse, but they will make it much easier to track.

Filed Under: abuse, censorship, europe, nsa, right to be forgotten, right to forget, search engines, stewart baker
Companies: google

EU Proposes 'Right To Be Forgotten' Online, In Contradiction With Free Speech Concepts

from the which-is-more-important? dept

As a bunch of folks have sent in, there’s a proposal making the rounds in the EU for a “right to be forgotten,” which would require websites to delete all information about a person at their request. We’ve actually seen something like this in the past, in Germany, where last year we noted that a convicted German murderer, was using such a law to demand details of his conviction be removed from various websites. It’s not difficult to recognize how problematic this concept can be. As Adam Thierer notes, a “right to be forgotten,” is a clear restriction on free speech.

Now, some might claim that this is a point where free speech and privacy rights clash, but I’m not sure I actually agree with that. In fact, I’d argue that a “right to be forgotten” is not really a “privacy” right in the first place. A privacy right should only concern information that is actually private. What a “right to be forgotten” does is try to take information that is, by default, public information, and pretend that it’s private. That’s a very different situation, and one that clearly conflicts with free speech concepts.

Filed Under: europe, free speech, privacy, right to forget

France Considers 'Right To Forget' Law, Apparently Not Realizing The Internet Never Forgets

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Hot on the heels of France considering laws to tax successful internet companies to try to prop up unsuccessful entertainment industry companies, comes a report that France is also considering a special “right to forget” law, which would allow anyone to ask that any information about them be deleted after a certain period of time. At first, I though that they meant content created by the person asking for it to be deleted (like emails), but it sounds like they mean any content about a person. So, say, if you did something embarrassing in college, and your friends put pictures of it online, once the time limit for the “right to forget” law kicked in, you could demand every version of that picture be taken offline. Yeah. Like that will work. Trying to suppress information online doesn’t work, no matter what law you put in place. I’m reminded of the convicted German murderer, who is demanding that information on his conviction be removed from Wikipedia under a similar type of law. All that did was call a lot more attention to the story.

Filed Under: defamation, forget, france, internet, right to forget