# Google told to "forget" old Internet content (lest someone be embarrassed) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2014, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334 "2014-05-13T10:42:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/21 "2014-05-13T18:40:21Z")
I’m really not seeing a problem with this ruling. Nobody is telling Google to delete information they don’t control. They’re being told to modify the parameters of their search engine. > [@Musicat](#): > > What about search engines that have no presence in the offended country? Presumably nobody in Spain will care about people using search engines that aren’t available in Spain to find them. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/22 "2014-05-13T19:44:21Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [The European Court of Justice has ruled](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27388289) that people have “the right to be forgotten”. So, for example, if some years ago you did something you’d rather no one know about it, Google would be obliged to wipe it off the ‘Internet map’. > > This is electronic revisionism. Stalin would be proud and Orwell would say, “See, I told you so”. > > I think it’s pretty obvious how I feel - it’s a stupid, patronizing ruling (and probably unenforceable to boot). What say yea? Oopsie…my 6th grade teacher was right that something would go on my “permanent record.” I always thought the Permanent Record was an adult head fake. Guess not. Since all Google is doing is telling a looker where Google has found publicly-available information, this ruling is asinine. The information is not “forgotten” until the owners of it do the forgetting. That’s where the appeal to “forget” should go. Not the search engine. What Google should do is add a service that lets an individual amend their record as they see fit, and charge for the service. Just another revenue stream, and when you Google that person, a note tells you they have requested some information that has been “forgotten.” That way a searcher knows Cecil Adams has a checkered past when the “Certain information has been FORGOTTEN BY GOOGLE flag comes up”–a lovely catch 22. Plus more revenue for Google. I bet 5 Euros the judges have stuff that needs forgetting, and fast. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/23 "2014-05-13T20:28:42Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Since all Google is doing is telling a looker where Google has found publicly-available information, this ruling is asinine. The information is not “forgotten” until the owners of it do the forgetting. As I’ve already implied, I’m kind of on the fence on this, but I think that assessment is overly simplistic. At the risk of abusing a common cliché, search engines are a fundamental paradigm shift in how we access information. I still remember, well into the days of public Internet availability, having little paper directories like small phone books that were guides to various websites and, just like phone books, they provided you with the essential URLs of those sites. It’s not like that today. The Internet itself was the first step, its incredible ubiquity was the second, and the enabling power of the search engine completes the paradigm shift. Any investigative reporter in the pre-Internet era could have told you that there’s an amazing amount of information you could dig up on anyone, it just took an awful lot of digging. No one was going to do that without serious motivation and, usually, serious money. Now you just type things on a keyboard. The use of Google by potential employers, police, border officials, any institution and anyone anywhere in the general public is a qualitatively new form of privacy intrusion that shouldn’t be casually dismissed. I just don’t know if there’s much we can really do about it. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/24 "2014-05-13T21:23:34Z")
I’ve only read the linked article and this thread, so I may be missing something. But, this sounds like bullshit to me. The world has changed. This is an attempt to change it back. The proper response to the world changing is to change with it. The proper response to photographs of you nude and drunk at a party when you were eighteen is not to try and throw those photographs down the memory hole. The proper response is “I was eighteen and drunk. I am now older, wiser and sober. Let he who never got drunk as a teenager and did something stupid throw the first stone.”. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/25 "2014-05-14T02:48:54Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The use of Google by potential employers, police, border officials, any institution and anyone anywhere in the general public is a qualitatively new form of privacy intrusion that shouldn’t be casually dismissed. I just don’t know if there’s much we can really do about it. You are confusing privacy and accessibility. The issue is not whether Google should be listing items which should be private. If that’s the issue, then I have no complaint. I don’t want Google listing my bank account, my sealed juvenile records, or the medical record listing my recent abortion. But I think instead that the issue is whether or not Google should be listing items which are not private–i.e., records not otherwise hidden from public consumption. Is it acceptable for Google to widen access to them? If they are already public records, the answer is “Yes.” The invasion of privacy, if there was one, was by the author of the original document or item. It is at that level that a mandate for improving privacy should occur. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/26 "2014-05-14T03:32:44Z")
Europe has very different sensibilities from the United States when it comes to data privacy. Where we in the US believe data should largely be open and free to everyone, the EU often takes great pains to ensure privacy. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/27 "2014-05-14T03:46:48Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I’m really not seeing a problem with this ruling. Nobody is telling Google to delete information they don’t control. They’re being told to modify the parameters of their search engine. That’s disingenuous. I know people who have no URL line in their browser (probably thanks to Bill Gates), and wouldn’t know what to do with it if they had. The only way they can connect with a web site is to enter it to a Google search line. If Google doesn’t show it, they won’t see it. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/28 "2014-05-14T05:21:43Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > What about newspapers? Should we not be able to go back in time and read old news? Old books? Old movies? Surely Sean Connery would have loved to purge League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from his past, right? > > So, what about places like Facebook that store something around ten plus years of some people’s lives, including thoughts, pictures, or similar? What about LiveJournal that has, potentially, 20 years of someone’s life? > > I mean, Google’s statement in the article is true. They only index the information. Why isn’t that Spanish man going after the person/service that holds the data that’s so embarassing? Each access to a Google fact is a new publication of that fact. We already accept that, for instance, convictions become spent and cannot be mentioned legally in news coverage after a certain amount of time. We have bound newspapers to this, so why should google (who are like newspapers a profit generating business) not be similalrly bound if they wish to carry out business in the jurisdiction. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/29 "2014-05-14T05:25:57Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I don’t really know anything about the EU courts. Can this ruling be appealed? How high up in the legal food chain is this court? Supreme legal authority unless a new Treaty/Constitution/Law is invoked. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/30 "2014-05-14T05:50:58Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But… it is ? You can’t tell a newspaper that ran a story on you or quoted you saying something monumentally stupid to obliterate the issue. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > O RLY? George Lucas might _wish_ that every copy of _Star Wars Holiday Special_ would spontaneously combust after X amount of time, but reality doesn’t work that way. I was thinking of more directly 1984-ish [examples](http://www.newseum.org/berlinwall/commissar_vanishes/vanishes.htm) myself… ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/31 "2014-05-14T10:17:59Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Each access to a Google fact is a new publication of that fact. We already accept that, for instance, convictions become spent and cannot be mentioned legally in news coverage after a certain amount of time. We have bound newspapers to this, so why should google (who are like newspapers a profit generating business) not be similalrly bound if they wish to carry out business in the jurisdiction. I am curious how this very 1984ish concept works in its effort to pretend what happened did not happen. I get the concept of not keeping a record at all. I get the concept of discarding records after a defined period of time. I get the concept of not being required to report a record (self-report or third-party report). I don’t get the concept of pretending something never happened, or trying to make something private which was once public. Why not just get rid of the record (for example, the newspaper archives) so that any “report” becomes unsupportable hearsay? Are newspapers allowed to make available searchable indexes to what they published in the past? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/32 "2014-05-14T10:48:49Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > We already accept that, for instance, convictions become spent and cannot be mentioned legally in news coverage after a certain amount of time. I don’t accept that; if it’s true – cite? – then what’s the penalty if a newspaper article with that truthful information hits the stands after the drop-dead date? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/33 "2014-05-14T12:17:06Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I don’t accept that; if it’s true – cite? – then what’s the penalty if a newspaper article with that truthful information hits the stands after the drop-dead date? I assuming Pjen is talking about the UK’s [Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/53/contents), but I don’t know much about it. [Here](http://www.lawreform.ie/_fileupload/Reports/Report%20Spent%20Convictions.pdf) is a Law Commission Report from Ireland talking about the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/34 "2014-05-14T12:32:54Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am curious how this very 1984ish concept works in its effort to pretend what happened did not happen. I get the concept of not keeping a record at all. I get the concept of discarding records after a defined period of time. I get the concept of not being required to report a record (self-report or third-party report). > > I don’t get the concept of pretending something never happened, or trying to make something private which was once public. Why not just get rid of the record (for example, the newspaper archives) so that any “report” becomes unsupportable hearsay? > > Are newspapers allowed to make available searchable indexes to what they published in the past? People are allowed to keep old publications for research. The position of a searchable database has not been decided. Given what the ECJ has said, L suspect that this would also be seen as a new publication, and therefore against the spirit / letter of various laws on privacy. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/35 "2014-05-14T13:14:23Z")
Looks like they can still publish the information as long as they don’t do it with malice; I believe the American approach – where truth is simply a defense to such defamation claims – is of course acceptable, while the alternative is horrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/36 "2014-05-14T14:16:02Z")
Doesn’t Google already censor some links, like to Nazi paraphernalia in Germany and other “hate speech” in certain European countries? ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/37 "2014-05-14T15:40:08Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Looks like they can still publish the information as long as they don’t do it with malice; I believe the American approach – where truth is simply a defense to such defamation claims – is of course acceptable, while the alternative is horrifying. Very few other countries follow the US led on that kind of Free Speech. That does not make them lesser countries, just different. Different countries have different ways of protecting Free Speech. In a recent study on Freedom of the Press the US came out considerably lower than many European nations including the UK. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/38 "2014-05-14T23:46:45Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Very few other countries follow the US led on that kind of Free Speech. That does not make them lesser countries, just different. Different countries have different ways of protecting Free Speech. In a recent study on Freedom of the Press the US came out considerably lower than many European nations including the UK. Show me the study and I’ll gladly tell you what else the US should be doing – but so long as _this_ is the topic under discussion, I’ll note that, no, on _this_ one, they’re different in general on free speech by being lesser in particular: punishing truth as slander, as libel, as defamation, when it’s, y’know, _The Truth,_ in capitals just like that? How can I even argue against that, if relaying the truth (a) can’t carry the day, because it (b) is off-limits? What should I work with, lies? C’mon, we’re better than that. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/39 "2014-05-15T02:32:12Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > Very few other countries follow the US led on that kind of Free Speech. That does not make them lesser countries, just different. Yes, it does make them lesser countries. In Australia, seven women were raped and one was murdered because judges kept letting Adrian Bayley out on bail or releasing him before his parole date. If the judges involved had not shown this depraved indifference towards the future victims of this serial rapist, these crimes would not have happened. It is obscene that they are given the power to imprison Derryn Hinch for refusing to help cover up their complicity in Bayley’s crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334/40 "2014-05-15T04:22:00Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Show me the study and I’ll gladly tell you what else the US should be doing – but so long as _this_ is the topic under discussion, I’ll note that, no, on _this_ one, they’re different in general on free speech by being lesser in particular: punishing truth as slander, as libel, as defamation, when it’s, y’know, _The Truth,_ in capitals just like that? > > How can I even argue against that, if relaying the truth (a) can’t carry the day, because it (b) is off-limits? What should I work with, lies? C’mon, we’re better than that. There is a real problem with the American assumption that just because some forward looking men 250 years ago set up the first fully democratic state, nothing that has happened since can better that. The First amendment is supposed to guarantee a Free Press, but in effect other American assumptions mean that for the most part the press is not as free as it is in many other countries where there is a wider spectrum of opinion available in the press and access from the powerless is easier. Similarly, what was intended to be the world’s first participatory democracy now has an appalling record over access to the franchise as other parts of the law are brought to bear on the matter. The franchise is far wider in most other democracies. Most Americans have a knee jerk assumption that they are the best country in the world- evidenced by the automatic assumption of dominance and the oozing patriotism. Most other nations admit that other countries may have methods of governance from which they can learn something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-told-to-forget-old-internet-content-lest-someone-be-embarrassed/688334.md?page=3)