# European "Right to be Forgotten" possibly extended Worldwide? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 14, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635 "2014-11-14T19:03:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/101 "2014-11-22T13:44:27Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Here’s something I don’t understand. The page I found through Yahoo, which contains a couple of posts accusing Shefet of Fraud and claiming that he lost his license, is on a site that claims to operate out of Austria. Isn’t Austria in the European Union? Can’t the ECJ simply order the posts removed? Is that not within their jurisdiction? Apparently France is, so why not Austria? If they can act against the French branch of Google, can’t they act against this company in Austria? First IANAL but my understanding was that the search engine has no responsibility to do anything until removal is requested by the person affected. When requested the search engine has to consider whether the request meets certain specific conditions and, if it does, stop the results being displayed. I have no real idea but I’d guess Shefet has not asked Yahoo to do anything - probably doesn’t think enough people use Yahoo to make it worth while. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/102 "2014-11-22T13:58:36Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > No. It enforces it on Google. It just so happens that you’re a Google user and can be impacted. If I’m in the business of selling stuff to Sudan, I’ll be impacted by my bank shutting down operations with this country, even though I’m a non-US citizen not living in the US and dealing with non US citizens not living in the US. The US courts would enforce their rulings on me (per your definition) even though I have no relationship altogether with the USA. > > … > > You’re not accustomed to be potentially personnally impacted by the decision of a French court, and it seems outrageous to you, but there’s nothing outrageous, or even uncommon, about it. Could you name a few ways in which U.S. Court rulings have personally impacted your life? Because the hypotheticals about porn companies are not illuminating in the slightest. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/103 "2014-11-22T14:50:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > So if I had technology that could download, index, and publicize every email you have ever sent and received in your life, business and personal, you would of course gladly defend my right to do this as a “basic human right”? :rolleyes: I think these are good questions and deserves serious answers. Email is an extension of what was known as “personal papers and correspondence” prior to the Internet age. The Constitution specifically makes us secure in our possession of those from Government, because it was recognized 300 years ago and likely even far before that in Europe dating back to the Middle Ages that privacy in these communications was paramount. The wax seal is an ancient thing and exists for an important reason. So yes, I would have a big problem with this because the technology would be violating the privacy of my personal correspondence. Additionally, since this correspondence is in a password protected system, it would also mean whomever acquired it would be illegally circumventing that system’s security. Now, if the _recipients_ of my emails chose to publish them, I would be personally upset with those recipients. But I don’t think that should be illegal. Recipients since time immemorial have had the more or less legal “clear” to share correspondence from another person. Thus why if you put pen to paper, you had better be willing to defend what you’ve put there. > [@](#): > > If I had a device that could see straight through the walls of your house and monitor and record all your movements 24x7, you would define my right to do this as a “basic human right”? Again, I would not be okay with this. Constitutional law enshrines what was an old principle–that inside our homes we are entitled to privacy. The government is not allowed to do this and neither should private citizens be allowed to (that issue is far murkier, legally, though.) > [@](#): > > I’m guessing you would not, just as I’m guessing that you are completely missing the point, as evidenced by your very odd concept of what a “human right” is. The point is that as new technologies become more potentially invasive and potentially harmful, they are radically changing the balance of privacy in society and the damage they can do to fundamental human rights, and so it becomes justified to place restrictions on those technologies to maintain the acceptable balance that a free society has come to expect. One that is, indeed, necessary in a free society, as opposed to some ideological libertarian one that regards absolute “free speech” as a sacred matter of holy Gospel, no matter what damage it does or what lies it promulgates. The two things you mentioned involve violating existing privacy norms. The thing we’re actually talking about in this thread involves **prohibiting dissemination of published newspaper articles** because subjects of those articles dislike the notoriety. If you genuinely cannot see the difference between that and the two examples you brought up then I don’t believe further dialog with you is constructive. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/104 "2014-11-22T14:54:29Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > First IANAL but my understanding was that the search engine has no responsibility to do anything until removal is requested by the person affected. When requested the search engine has to consider whether the request meets certain specific conditions and, if it does, stop the results being displayed. I have no real idea but I’d guess Shefet has not asked Yahoo to do anything - probably doesn’t think enough people use Yahoo to make it worth while. I wasn’t talking about removing it from Yahoo. It was talking about removing the actual content in question from the servers of the company in Austria that owns that page. In this particular case, it strikes me that the actual content could be ordered to be removed without involving the search engines in any way. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/105 "2014-11-22T14:56:22Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > **wolfpup** , I think what’s bothering some of us more isn’t so much the censorship (if it can be called that), it’s more the attempt to apply a country’s laws and court rulings to other countries. If this is allowed then what’s to stop countries from pressuring Google to de-index other types of speech worldwide? For me, it’s not so much about the “right to be forgotten” or cases of defamation, it’s the idea of countries trying to force their laws on citizens of other countries when those citizens have no representation in the country doing the pressuring. That is where you’re wrong. Anytime there are international organization it’s likely that laws in one place will impact how they operate in other markets. U.S. anti-bribery laws for example can make what is essentially “legal business as usual” in certain developing countries illegal for American based companies operating in those countries. My issue with this is, in fact, the censorship. France is a developed country with well established liberties and a close ally, it pains me to see them become less free because people believe that newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to write articles about them, it doubly pains me that then the French courts focus their efforts on wholly innocent indexing services. It thrice pains me they seem to be focused on Google but not other services like Bing, EBSCOHost or et cetera which also index these newspapers. The United Kingdom already has horrific freedom of speech protections, I’d hate to see France fall into that category. The impact on me is minimal. How many times do you think I’ve google searched for news articles about French citizens convicted of petty crimes? Precisely zero. My Internet experience won’t change either way from this, but the openness of French society will, and that’s a bad thing. I want all of our allies to have free and open societies. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/106 "2014-11-22T14:59:48Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > How free is use of information in the USA? I remember in my misspent youth in California assisting with the collection of licence plates and individual identities of the drug squad of the local police forces. All this information was in the public domain. They closed down the Free Press newspaper that published the information. Would this be legal now or not? That information was likely legally published back then. It’s probably the free paper was successfully shut down due to either: a) some technicality unrelated to what you describe b) because they didn’t have effective legal counsel There have been at least a few cases in recent years where police departments have attempted to sue to stop newspapers from publishing lists of police officer names. For example in the UC Davis pepper spraying incident they tried to stop the publication of the names of the eighteen officers on scene, but the courts didn’t allow that sort of prohibition on the press. Without knowing more specifics I can’t say why the free paper you’re talking about was shut down. But a lot of times issues like that have to be thoroughly litigated and I wouldn’t be surprised if a free paper simply lacked the means to do so, the ACLU will sometimes assist in cases like that but they have limited resources. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/107 "2014-11-22T15:16:57Z")
This is actually reasonable, IMO, as the information in question is malicious. > [@Daily Mail](#): > > Google’s French arm has been told it will have to pay a 1,000 euro fine every day should the parent company in America – Google Inc - fail to remove a defamatory article from its global network. > The order, by a court in Paris, is an enforcement of the controversial so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling. > The case was brought against Google by Dan Shefet, a Danish lawyer employed in France, last August following a malicious campaign against his firm by various blogs and sites that was overseen by someone who couldn’t be traced. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/108 "2014-11-22T21:18:33Z")
Would this be similiar to Rick Santorum’s attempts to get Google to remove the “Spreading Santorum” website from its searchs? Think of the Pandora’s Box we’re opening here. I’m finding this ruling seriously disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/109 "2014-11-22T21:59:25Z")
Generally no, as I understand it the EU countries that are pursuing this concept have promulgated it such that it excludes public figures. Santorum is a former elected official and Presidential candidate, he’d likely not be eligible for protections. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/110 "2014-11-22T22:35:39Z")
Here’s Shefet’s complaint to Google, btw. [https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/757774](https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/757774) Chilling Effects, btw, is a website that catalogs requests for removal of materials online. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/111 "2014-11-22T23:35:05Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Generally no, as I understand it the EU countries that are pursuing this concept have promulgated it such that it excludes public figures. Santorum is a former elected official and Presidential candidate, he’d likely not be eligible for protections. But who defines who a public figure is, and more important, can a complainant demand that the information be removed until legal proceedings are concluded? Because an expensive lawyer can draw this kind of thing out for years. It seems like a perfect way for actual public figures to suppress information by miring it in bureaucracy - something the isn’t exactly hard to find in European governments. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/112 "2014-11-24T12:07:11Z")
Another case with similar effect > **[Google settles online abuse court case](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/24/google-settles-online-abuse-court-case-daniel-hegglin)** > > International businessman brought case against global arm of internet search firm over spread of malicious stories online ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/113 "2014-11-24T16:40:49Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > That is where you’re wrong. Anytime there are international organization it’s likely that laws in one place will impact how they operate in other markets. U.S. anti-bribery laws for example can make what is essentially “legal business as usual” in certain developing countries illegal for American based companies operating in those countries… And there was even an amendment to those US laws to permit [“minor facilitating payments”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitating_payment) so that US companies could stand a chance at navigating the intricacies of common third-world regulatory regimes. US entities are allowed to “bribe” foreign officials to the extent socially required to make those officials perform their duties. So slipping a border guard a Grant (pun intended) to stamp your customs form might be ok, but handing a procurement officer a briefcase of cash to convince him to have his government buy guns from you is probably right out. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635/114 "2014-12-06T05:43:59Z")
Another current case that exemplifies possible trans-atlantic differences about privacy and Google: > **[UK privacy watchdog intervenes in hearing over Google’s use of web data](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/05/privacy-watchdog-google-row-web-data)** > > Commissioner emphasises need for clearer definition of personal information as tech firm seeks to halt case against it This article describes parallel cases in Delaware and the UK about harm caused to people by the use of information via cookies. The lower court in the USA found no material harm under US law but the lower court in the UK found that the European Convention on Human Rights gave a right to privacy over the information used by Google. Google is appealing the UK case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-right-to-be-forgotten-possibly-extended-worldwide/704635.md?page=5)