Google [and other search engines] Loose Big-Time In EU Court!

[Peter Lemkin]

European court says Google must respect 'right to be forgotten'

BY FOO YUN CHEE
BRUSSELS Tue May 13, 2014 5:40pm EDT




A Google logo is seen at the entrance to the company's offices in Toronto September 5, 2013.























(Reuters) - Internet companies can be made to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information from search engine results, Europe's top court ruled on Tuesday in a case pitting privacy campaigners against Google.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) upheld the complaint of a Spanish man who objected to the fact that Google searches on his name threw up links to a 1998 newspaper article about the repossession of his home.
The case highlighted the struggle in cyberspace between free speech advocates and supporters of privacy rights who say people should have the "right to be forgotten" - meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the Internet.

It creates technical challenges as well as potential extra costs for companies like Google, the world's no. 1 search engine, and Facebook.
Google can be required to remove data that are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed," said judges at the Luxembourg-based court. The ECJ said the rights of people whose privacy has been infringed outweighed the general public interest.
Google said it was disappointed with the ruling, which contradicted a non-binding opinion from the ECJ's court adviser last year that said deleting sensitive information from search results would interfere with freedom of expression.
"We are very surprised that it differs so dramatically from the Advocate General's opinion and the warnings and consequences that he spelled out. We now need to take time to analyze the implications," said Google spokesman Al Verney.
The European Commission proposed in 2012 that people should have the "right to be forgotten" on the Internet. This was watered down by the European Parliament last year in favor of a
"right to erasure" of specific information.
The proposal needs the blessing of the 28 European Union governments before it can become law. Google, Facebook and other Internet companies have lobbied against such plans, worried about the extra costs.
The issues of privacy and data protection in Europe have become all the more sensitive since a former U.S. intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden, leaked details last year of U.S. surveillance programmes for monitoring vast quantities of emails and phone records worldwide.
EXTRA COSTS
Tuesday's court ruling will likely benefit ordinary people but not public figures, said Larry Cohen, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins.
"The ruling will help certain people hide their past, making it difficult to access certain information, but not when it concerns public figures, or people in whom there is a genuine public interest," he said.
"This will result in added costs for Internet search providers who will have to add to their take-down policies the means for removing links to an individual's data, and develop criteria for distinguishing public figures from private individuals," he said.
In the United States, California recently passed a state "eraser" law which will require tech companies to remove material posted by a minor, if the user requests it. The new rule is scheduled to take effect in 2015 and will likely face a court challenge, said Thomas Burke, a partner with Davis Wright Tremaine in San Francisco.
"It's a reflection of the same sort of views that users have a right to control what they post," said Burke, adding that he was not aware of any pending U.S. lawsuits against Internet companies similar to the European case.
The Spanish data protection agency said the case was one of 220 similar ones in Spainwhose complainants want Google to delete their personal information from the Web.
"We are very satisfied that there is an end now to the ferocious resistance shown by the search engine to comply with the resolutions of the Spanish data protection agency in this matter," a spokeswoman for the agency said.
European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said that the court ruling vindicated EU efforts to toughen up privacy rules.
"Companies can no longer hide behind their servers being based in California or anywhere else in the world," she said.
Google suffered a previous privacy setback earlier this year when a German court ordered it to block search results in Germany linked to photos of a sex party involving former Formula One motor racing boss Max Mosley.
(Additional reporting by Harro ten Wolde in Frankfurt, Robert Hetz in Madrid and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Adrian Croft, Mark Trevelyan and Gunna Dickson)

[Peter Lemkin]

While the above news is mostly to the good - there are obvious downsides to this, as well. One example, a Serial scam artist could ask they have such information about themselves removed from all Search Engines. Another problem is that even IF Google [and/or other search engines] removed said information, it is stored elsewhere on the internet and most items can never really be removed [only made more difficult to access] once placed on the internet. This ruling, whatever forms it may take in legislation or further legal arguments, only applies in the EU - not in the USA or elsewhere....another no so little logical problem. I'm sure intelligence/propaganda agents will have a field day using this to delete information they don't want, while still placing information/propaganda they do want. It has the same problems as, say, Wikipedia in the fight for what is the 'truth' of an issue. However, it is about the first crack in the wall for the Search Engines - and that can't be all bad.

[Magda Hassan]

This is wonderful news. I hope it pans out properly. I was just talking with others a couple of weeks ago about this. How if we go to a shop we can just go and shop buy our goods and go. On-line we provide so much of ourselves and with no benefit to us but of huge financial benefit to others unknown to us who can do who knows what with it. Once you've done your thing on the net there should be no more trace of you unless requested or agreed to by you.

[Magda Hassan]

Paedophile, misbehaving politician and GP who was unhappy with his online reviews among those inundating Google with 'right to be forgotten' requests after EU ruling

• Search engine firm has already received a flood of requests to remove links
  
• Decision by top European court affects 500 million internet users
  
  
• Requires search services to take down information that could tarnish image
  
  
• Firm is expecting influx of requests and process to deal with them
  
  
• Google will need to build up an 'army of removal experts' in each of the 28 EU countries, including those where Google does not have operations
  

By Wills Robinson and Sarah Griffiths
Published: 21:45 AEST, 15 May 2014 | Updated: 21:04 AEST, 16 May 2014



A man convicted of possessing child pornography, a misbehaving politician seeking re-election and a doctor with bad reviews.
These are among the flood of people who have already contacted Google demanding that their internet histories be deleted.

Earlier this week Europe's highest court ruled people now have the 'right to be forgotten', meaning around 500million internet users could have links which tarnish their reputation removed.

An investigation by Mail Online has found a paedophile has asked for stories about his conviction to be taken down from the site while a politician tried to have pieces about his behaviour in office deleted.
Scroll down for video



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In a landmark ruling, a European court has made it possible for people to ask Google, stock image pictured, to remove any search results that contain private, or sensitive data. The search engine is legally obliged to comply, unless there are particular reasons not to, such as the result and its data is in the public interest



A physician who was unhappy about feedback posted on a review site also tried to have links to the page removed.

The world's largest search engine is yet to put a process to handle the expected influx of requests in place after Tuesday's ruling.

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The decision by European Court of Justice, requires that search services remove information deemed 'inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant' and failure to do so can result in fines.
'There's many open questions,' Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the company's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday in response to a question about the ruling and its implications on Google's operations.
'A simple way of understanding what happened here is that you have a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know. From Google's perspective that's a balance,' Schmidt said.

'Google believes having looked at the decision, which is binding, that the balance that was struck was wrong.'


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He was not asked about the recent take-down requests.
MailOnline has contacted Google, but the firm has yet to reveal the number of take-down requests it has received.

Google will need to build up an 'army of removal experts' in each of the 28 EU countries, including those where Google does not have operations, the source said.

Whether those staffers merely remove controversial links or actually judge the merits of individual take-down requests are among the many questions Google is yet to decide, the source said.
European citizens can submit take-down requests directly to Internet companies rather than to local authorities or publishers under the ruling.

If a search engine elects not to remove the link, a person can seek redress from the courts.
The criteria for determining which take-down requests are legitimate is not completely clear from the decision, said Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at the George Washington University and head of the National Constitution Centre.

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The ruling was made by the European Union Court of Justice, pictured. It comes after a Spanish man complained an online auction note about his repossessed home infringed his privacy. Google told MailOnline it is 'disappointed' by the ruling and argued it should not be a censor for data held on websites in its index
The ruling seems to give search engines more leeway to dismiss take-down requests for links to webpages about public figures, in which the information is deemed to be of public interest.

But search engines may err on the side of caution and remove more links than necessary to avoid liability, said Rosen, a long-time critic of such laws.

He was asked by Google to speak to reporters on Tuesday's ruling, but has no formal relationship with the company.
Search engines will also have to authenticate requests, he noted, to ensure that the person seeking a link's removal is actually the one he or she claims to be.

THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

Under the European Data Protection Regulation, Article 17 includes the right to be forgotten and to erasure'.

Under Article 17, people who are mentioned in the data have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data relating to them and the abstention from further dissemination of such data.'

This particularly relates to data about the person when they were a child, when the data is no longer relevant or necessary for the purpose it was collected, the person who owns the content withdraws their consent, the storage period has expired, or if it was gathered illegally.

The EU defines data controllers' as people or bodies that collect and manage personal data.'

The EU General Data Protection Regulation means any data controller who has been asked to remove data must take all reasonable steps, including technical measures' to remove it.

If a data controller does not take these steps they can be heavily fined.


Google is the dominant search engine in Europe, commanding about 93 percent of the market, according to StatCounter global statistics. Microsoft Corp's Bing has 2.4 percent and Yahoo Inc has 1.7 percent.
Google has some experience dealing with take-down requests in its YouTube video website, which has a process to remove uploads that infringe copyrights.

Google has automated much of the process with a ContentID system that automatically scans uploaded videos for particular content that media companies have provided to YouTube.
Google may be able to create similar technology to address the EU requirements, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.
Even if Google does not automate the process, the extra cost of hiring staffers is likely to be insignificant to a company that generated roughly $60 billion in revenue last year, Gillis said.

If Google were to pay staffers $15 an hour to process take-down requests, for example, the company could get a million hours of work for $15 million, he said. 'It's the cost of doing business for them.'
Google has said it is disappointed with the ruling, which it noted differed dramatically from a non-binding opinion by the ECJ's court adviser last year. That opinion said deleting information from search results would interfere with freedom of expression.
Yahoo is 'carefully reviewing' the decision to assess the impact for its business and its users, a spokeswoman said in a statement. 'Since our founding almost 20 years ago, we've supported an open and free internet; not one shaded by censorship.'
Microsoft declined to comment.

Brett Dixon, founder of DP Online Marketing, told MailOnline: 'The news that search engine operators will be subject to a European Union dictat on the right to be forgotten is ludicrous.

'This ruling advocates nobody being responsible for their own actions.

Akin to press censorship, it's absolutely wrong that information that is of interest to the general public ought not to be in the public domain. You might as well say to a journalist who's written up a story that they have no right to publish it.
'The danger is that a public figure can behave as badly as they like, but with no consequences whatsoever, the story effectively becomes buried and forgotten about.

'There are a minority of cases whereby an individual is associated with unsolicited negative attention due to factually incorrect information on Google and other search engines, but cases such as these should not dictate the lay of the land for everyone.'




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[David Guyatt]

It's typical isn't it. Something that should be applied for the best of reasons is being abused by the worst offenders.

[Drew Phipps]

The totally scariest part of this story is that there is no appeal from the EU's ruling. I wonder if the member countries of the EU realized that they were signing away their citizen's rights to appeal adverse judgments when they signed on to be part of the EU. I wonder if the citizens of those countries realized it.