
European Court limits right to be forgotten to E.U. - BeniBoy
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=218105&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=903295
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brokenkebab
The ruling is fair, it would open an international can of worms if EU bodies
would start to dictate other countries users what to see on the net.

However, it means the real effect of the RtBF law is that it impedes less
technically proficient internet users to search other person's data, but
absolutely doesn't achieve stated goals (as nothing is forgotten, and entities
which do personal data checks will for sure be able to use non-EU IPs to get
unrestricted results). What it essentially does is limitation of low-skilled
users search results. And that's all.

Which proves the whole thing was a combination of PR stunt, and incompetence
on behalf of wide array of EU politicians, and NGO activists.

~~~
temporalparts
I don't understand why it's search engine's burden to bear for right to be
forgotten. Shouldn't the takedown notices go to the source materials, eg
newspapers, who actually contains the knowledge? Google is simply the
references to knowledge that "needs" to be forgotten, and not the knowledge
itself?

~~~
panzagl
It's easy to understand- Google is an American company, but individual
websites could be anywhere, even France.

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BeniBoy
The crux of the ruling

> [...] that operator is not required to carry out that de-referencing on all
> versions of its search engine, but on the versions of that search engine
> corresponding to all the Member States, using, where necessary, measures
> which, while meeting the legal requirements, effectively prevent or, at the
> very least, seriously discourage an internet user conducting a search from
> one of the Member States on the basis of a data subject’s name from gaining
> access, via the list of results displayed following that search, to the
> links which are the subject of that request.

~~~
hnarn
I'm curious what "seriously discourage" would mean in this context, just bury
the search result and that's fine?

~~~
m12k
I think practically speaking it means a VPN will be able to bypass it and
that's ok.

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seanwilson
So now you could defeat the purpose of the "right to be forgotten" by making a
site that remembers and lists all items that have been purged from EU only
search results?

righttoberemembered.eu hasn't be registered yet.

~~~
aequitas
Except that for a .eu domain you need to be EU citizen or a organisation based
in the EU, making you liable under EU law. But other than that, yes.

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hugoroy
A few comments/explanations on that ruling:

1\. It is not the end of the case -- this ruling is from the European Union
law's top court (the CJEU) to give the ultimate interpretation of European
Union law on the topic.

2\. The case now goes back to France, where the French judge will decide,
taking into account both EU law and French law, whether the Data Protection
Authority's (CNIL) ruling against Google was correct or not. The most crucial
point that most media reports miss is that the CJEU ruling states clearly that
French courts are not prohibited from ordering a global de-listing of all
versions of Google, if the protection of privacy requires so (Point 72 of the
ruling).

3\. The CJEU ruling restates many points from its 2014 ruling against Google
Inc (US) and Google Spain - i.e. this is about an individual's right to remove
certain results from the list of results based on the individual's name. It is
not a right to remove content per se, nor is it a right to remove results
entirely (i.e. the de-listed results should be searchable through any other
search query)

4\. As in 2014, the Court rules that as a general rule/principle, the
individual's right to opt-out prevails over the public's freedom to access
search results -- but this is not absolute, and the other way around may be
true depending on the circumstances (e.g. if the result is particularly
relevant for the public's interest). [This "general rule" is the part of the
ruling which I find most open to criticism, as in my opinion this is not what
the law provides]

5\. This ruling is based on law before the GDPR. While the GDPR will continue
to apply this _mutatis mutandis_ as we say, this ruling has nothing to do
directly with GDPR.

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jaclaz
So basically, if you cannot find what you are looking for, use a few proxies
to try the same on non-EU countries versions of the same search engine?

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
The goal of the law is not to make information impossible to find. That's why
this targets search engines primarily.

The goal is that it becomes harder to resurface irrelevant information from
someone's past.

~~~
jaclaz
The issue of course is not about the Law, and not even with the actual right
to be forgotten (right or wrong is another question), it is IMHO more about
the fact that this (or that) search engine will have different results
depending on from where you make the same search.

Now these differences may well be only for the searches related to someone who
invoked his/her right to be forgotten, but the moment the results of a same
search from different places can be different, it opens all possible avenues
to remove (or add) other kind of information selectively.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
Even without that law search engines already return different results in
different countries.

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curt15
People in the US have never had a right to control over what people in other
countries write or think about them. Vice versa.

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rolltiide
I really like what they are trying to do in the European Union

Just surprised this court hasn’t had its Marbury v Madison moment when it
rules for itself to take over the government

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duxup
Did this limit the law to search engine's again?

We've seen it used against newspapers. I worry about that.

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api
Too bad. I was hoping the EU would use its economic might to apply pressure
against surveillance capitalism. Sometimes when our host nations fail us our
best option is to hope for global pressure.

~~~
chroma
My issue with "right to be forgotten" is with the principle, not the
implementation. It violates not only freedom of speech, but freedom of private
communication. Let's look at what it's really involved with: I send an
encrypted request asking a company for some information. That company wants to
reply (also encrypted) with that information. This law forbids them from doing
so. The company might be a megacorp like Google, but (depending on what I'm
searching for) it might be a smaller service run by an enthusiast.

This law should really be called, "The right to stop other people saying true
things about me to people who request that information."

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wtdata
All this does is to move business out of EU.

We are now worst that when we started: Still no right to privacy and now,
loosing our companies.

~~~
__m
makes room for companies that respect privacy

~~~
rayvd
People care far more about companies that provide the best price.

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hartator
That’s a good news. It was the worst part of GDPR.

~~~
lostjohnny
it has nothing to do with GDPR

thanks for trying

~~~
blankety119
Are you sure about that?

The implications of what's been said here will on some level impact how EU law
will apply to countries outside of the EU. Considering the right to be
forgotten is closely married to the right to erasure, GDPR is in the
crosshairs. Remember, GDPR was supposed to apply globally. It's clear from
today's ruling, there's some doubt in the courts whether or not that is even
responsible, let alone possible.

~~~
orwin
> Considering the right to be forgotten is closely married to the right to
> erasure

How? The right to be forgotten is just basically asking
google/yahoo/bing/qwant not to put articles that can hurt one's reputation if
asked. Imagine the only thing you're known for is a pedophilia case were you
were first condamned, then release because it appears the children (and some
of the really guilty) have lied:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outreau_trial)
You might want your name removed from google. Maybe.

The right to erasure is just your furnishing your own personnal data to a
service provider and then asking them to remove all the data they have on you
they can delete.

In the last case, you have a direct, business relation to the service
provider. In the first one you don't.

~~~
blankety119
Erasure cannot stand on its own. It needs the Right to be Forgotten upheld,
globally.

"The correspondingly-named rule primarily regulates erasure obligations"
[https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/right-to-be-forgotten/](https://gdpr-
info.eu/issues/right-to-be-forgotten/)

GDPR even labels the right to erasure as "the right to be forgotten"
[http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/article-17-right-to-
eras...](http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/article-17-right-to-
erasure-'right-to-be-forgotten'-GDPR.htm)

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m-p-3
One more reason to push the jurisdiction we each live in to move towards
similar rights.

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JasonFruit
I wonder how it came to be that only people in certain countries have a
particular right, and how a court can determine that. I'd like to know their
definition of a right. I'm pretty sure it differs from mine.

~~~
rayvd
Some countries define rights on paper and then fight wars to preserve them.

Where there are differences between political bodies, the options are:

    
    
      * Negotiate to resolve them via treaties, etc.
      * Coerce via other means - usually loops back to the first bullet once sufficient force has been applied

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ryanobjc
Apparently the “right to be forgotten” is from laws in Spain which exist to
allow people to erase their fascist past. Avoiding awkward conversations about
what oke did during the war.

~~~
hugoroy
This comes from a [EU Court 2014 Ruling][1] based on Spain's implementation of
European Union Directive 95/46 from 1995 which has nothing to do with what
you're talking about.

[1]:
[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=152065&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=969114)

And the 2014 ruling, as this ruling, are clear that there is no absolute right
to "erase" the result on a name.

It is not a wildcard to erase every bit of relevant data about anyone, and
Google regularly denies requests to de-list result on this basis.

As the 2014 ruling provides:

"Whilst it is true that the data subject’s rights protected by those articles
also override, as a general rule, that interest of internet users, that
balance may however depend, in specific cases, on the nature of the
information in question and its sensitivity for the data subject’s private
life and on the interest of the public in having that information, an interest
which may vary, in particular, according to the role played by the data
subject in public life. (§81 of 2014, Case C-131/12)"

And for example the court provides that "for particular reasons" the right
does not apply. Such reasons include "the role played by the data subject in
public life" that would be "justified by the preponderant interest of the
general public in having, on account of inclusion in the list of results,
access to the information in question. (§97)"

As always, the actual ruling is much more nuanced and balanced than many media
reports or corporations would have you believe.

