To Mike Elgan , Professor Jeff Jarvis and the rest of the Geeks

[G+_George Kozi]

To Mike Elgan , Professor Jeff Jarvis and the rest of the Geeks.

 

The big confusion.

 

While thinking about this imperfect right to be forgotten thing, it occurred to me that in the minds of many, to a large extent The Internet means Google. However, as much as we like Google, Google is not the internet.

 

The search results we see are nothing but an incomplete list as it is. Not everything that is online appears in it. That list is filtered by all the "if's and but's" they built into the algorithms.  Google (and all the others) already function, and has been doing so from the very beginning, as a judge and jury of what it shows us.

 

Moreover, I'm sure that agencies and governments and companies have boatloads of web pages that do not show up anywhere. There must also be such pages that at some point did show up, but no longer do so. So... if governments and agencies and companies can do it, so should we.

 

And by the way... why is everything that is put online immediately crawled and indexed? Shouldn't there be explicit consent given for this? Should that consent be revocable? As it is, the consent is simply presumed, and that ain't quite right.

 

n.b. I'm sure that there are some flaws in the thoughts above, But I beg your understanding... all this is still fluid and opaque.

[G+_Damian Mongru]

I've been saying this for ages George Kozi , Google already decide which links are shown, and they already do this according to known laws. As such the actual result of the ruling isn't as egregious as some say it is. However, it is the 'why' that is important, and it is what should be questioned most of all.

 

As for explicit consent, isn't this what German media tried to do? They quickly realised that people being able to find their pages through Google is a good thing. (I maybe mixing up my examples here.) Although it is an interesting point, maybe you want to revoke the crawling of information on your site. Although, why would you put things on the Internet if you didn't want people to read it?

 

George Kozi  I take it you are for the right to be forgotten? How does it work in practice? Is it fair to a writer who may want something crawled and indexed, and has written legitimate work that it is removed from (all) search engine results? What happens if that information becomes relevant in a couple of years? I have only read the press release and advocate-opinions and still have no idea what irrelevant, or no longer relevant actually means.

[G+_Joe Morrison]

If you don't want your stuff indexed by Google there is a very simple protocol to indicate this. Look up robots.txt to see what it takes to stay out of Google.

[G+_George Kozi]

I'm not sure if I am for or against it. What I do notice are two things:

1) there seems to be a need for it. This hasn't just materialized out of thin air.

2) it can be abused( see all the extreme examples media likes to quote.) But there are also cases where it has worked. Simple people who had a problem no longer have it.

 

This law is only a first attempt at addressing this. I'm sure it will be improved. What's relevant and what is not... The answer to that is like what that judge who decided what is porn said... "I'll know when I see it."

[G+_George Kozi]

Robots.txt? I'm sure aunt Irma knows what that is

[G+_Randy Hudson]

The way I figure it, publicly accessible web pages are fair game. If you don't want them crawled and/or indexed then protect them with a login or similar.

 

I think this entire law is bullshit. You want a page taken down go after whomever is hosting it, not the search engines. The next thing I expect to come from this precedent is for the search engines to be sued by the recording industry because I can use Google to search for torrents.

 

[G+_Damian Mongru]

George Kozi  Part of the argument is why would you need to take down irrelevant data?  'I'll know it when I see it' is a terrible explanation, and inherently subjective. If Google and Bing both had similar removal requests could they both come up with valid reasons to have a differing opinion?

 

Have you got any good examples where this ruling has been used. I here many hypotheticals, that do sound correct use of the ruling, but how legitimate are they?

 

The ruling follows the Data Protection Directive, which is currently being updated to the General Data Protection Regulation. This is an example of the anachronistic nature of the ruling. The EU understands the Directive needs to be changed, as such we also know that this ruling also needs to be changed.

 

Randy Hudson  You can't go after the site as it is media and has freedom of speech, whilst Google is considered a data controller and needs to act like one. The copyright example is odd, as Google (and Youtube) yield to many DMCA and copyright takedown requests. In this case the companies, and Google have acted in the same way as the right to be forgotten ruling.

[G+_Michael Deis]

Randy Hudson raises a legitimate point here.  The problem is that the entity that posted the offending entry is not held responsible.  Rather, in a 'slight of hand' search engines are asked to remove links to the offending entry.  Shouldn't the onus be put on the entity that posted the actual 'offending'  entry?

 

And, don't laws already exist to prevent libel? Why are search engines being used to limit access to information, if the information is not libelous?  And, why are governments seeking to limit speech through private entities instead of referring those with a grievance to the court system?  It looks as if the court is looking for an extra-legal mechanism to achieve censorship.  

 

Self-censorship is much more effective at impacting/limiting speech than direct government intervention as it is less visible.  This is why the questions raised by EU regulators wanting information from the search engines related to Google's "notification of removals" is so chilling.  Transparency seems to be exactly what these regulators want to avoid.  How can that be good for a democratic society?

 

http://online.wsj.com/articles/eu-regulators-invite-google-microsoft-to-discuss-right-to-be-forgotten-1405592730

[G+_Randy Hudson]

I'm exercising my right to be forgetful today.

[G+_Damian Mongru]

Michael Deis I've posted this Guardian article many times before because it explains the right to be forgotten issue extremely well, and answers a lot of your questions,

 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/explainer-right-to-be-forgotten-the-newest-cultural-shibboleth

 

This explains why search engines are being made responsible. Effectively, when you type your name in, the search results are seen as a profile - it returns information on your name, and is therefore seen as a data controller. Data controllers should remove the irrelevant data when asked to. Also, the website is seen as 'media' and has journalistic and freedom of speech rights. Whenever someone says 'go after the website' it doesn't effect the right to be forgotten ruling at all. The sleight of hand is in categorising search engines as data controllers.

 

I'm not sure how much of this is censorship as the right for the website to post information has not changed. Also, the government would argue that it's not government/state-sponsored censorship as Google determines which links are removed.

 

You're also still free to go after websites containing libelous/copyright etc material.

 

I would rather have all the information and make up my own mind on its relevance. My guess would be Google would rather process the data to show you the most relevant and interesting results where right to be forgotten gives some of that power back to the user.

[G+_Randy Hudson]

The problem with all this Damian Mongru is that categorizing a search engine as a Data Controller is probably absurd at best. A more accurate description should probably be Data Directory. A search engine should catalog all known available data without prejudice. Think of it like a public library. It would be absurd to pass a law that says the library can offer any book it wishes in it's inventory, but these certain books must not be in their card catalog or whatever they call them today (you can tell I don't go to libraries much).

 

It is up to the individual performing the search to determine the relevance of the data presented. And it should fall on the author to assure the accuracy of the content, though with freedom of speech accuracy will always be subjective. In the case of slander or libel it should be up to the courts to make a determination.

 

Any other method of filtering is censorship no matter how one tries to justify it.?

 

Having said that, one issue with Google is that they are not simply a search engine as Google also caches web pages allowing the searching individual to view pages even after the original publisher has taken them down. In this case Google should be viewed differently. Probably not as media since they didn't write and certain don't own said content, so they wouldn't necessarily be entitled to the same rights.?

[G+_Damian Mongru]

+Randy Hudson. I agree with pretty much everything you have said here. I'm just putting forward the other point of view. I have said in many comments, and even above, that categorising search engines as data controllers is the problem. 

 

I have also mentioned above, that I personally would prefer to have all the information and then to assess the relevance to my particular needs. As also mentioned, Google itself doesn't want to give you ALL the information, or at the very least, they want to show you the information it algorithmically deems most useful - it's not random, by it's very nature it has prejudice. The EU thinks maybe, according to current guidelines, the person in question is allowed a say in the matter. Google has many ways to determine which results are shown: from actually interpreting what is written in the search box, to Page rank (do they still use that?), copyright requests, algorithms, the EU just want to add 'right to be forgotten' to that list. 

 

The library analogy isn't quite the same. Are we talking about searching for a book and finding information on the book including where to find it? If so, this is just a passive search and no processing of the information occurs. It's just a form of data matching. Also, the right to be forgotten is meant to deal with people and personal information, which the EU feel should have extra protection.

 

So what am I doing here? I don't think the right to be forgotten is a workable ruling. However, a lot of the discussion has been about issues that aren't mentioned in the ruling, and as such make no sense in trying to reverse the decision. E.g. 'freedom of speech' where no ones right to post to the Internet is infringed, or 'why don't we go after the web-site' when laws exist to do this. I feel the question is more, how do we prove Search engines are not Data Controllers? You're right, they need a different description, but at the moment they seem to have a huge overlap with what a Data Controller does.

[G+_Randy Hudson]

I agree that search engines are not the same as a library card catalog Michael Deis. However I do think they should provide the same general function. i.e. enable you to search for and find content on the internet much the same way the library catalog helps you find books, magazines, newspapers, etc. Unfortunately that is not all they seem to do.

 

It would be best if the search engine just provided you the raw results and didn't try to filter or weigh them. However that is probably not possible due the the sheer volume of information available.

 

One thing I'm certain everyone will agree on, there is no easy answer.