
Google has now ‘forgotten’ more than a quarter-million URLs - lelf
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/22/google-has-now-forgotten-more-than-a-quarter-million-urls/
======
TimJRobinson
It's interesting that the right to be forgotten only applies to search engines
(as far as I can tell). So in theory someone could scrape the first few pages
of results for most names in the world (or those who are somewhat famous at
least), keep track of what results have been completely removed and create a
site listing all of them.

I could even see this being a business model by selling that data to Private
investigators, credit agencies, the media etc. It's a little unethical though
could be useful if say politicians or unscrupulous people try and re-write
history to make themselves look better.

~~~
jfoster
It would make a lot more sense if the right to be forgotten applied to regular
sites first and foremost. A news article that unfairly damages someone's
reputation would eventually drop off Google if the original article were
removed.

~~~
happyscrappy
The rest of the world still sees the actual search results as does anyone who
goes to google.com. Your censorship idea would have to disconnect Europe from
the rest of the internet to work.

~~~
arcatek
The point is that the search results would quickly disappear if the original
pages were removed (since the search engine would remove them from its index
too).

It's not the case because it's easier to target the search engines rather than
the N websites which have published a story.

------
drawkbox
_For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any
document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper
lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory
hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm
air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of
the building._

------
dantiberian
_But Google drily noted that in some cases Web users are overestimating just
how much of the online space the company can control: "Sometimes we even
receive requests to remove content 'from the Internet,'" the company reports.
Google might have a great deal of power over what happens online. But not that
much._

Removing something from Google search results effectively does remove it from
the Internet. If you can't find something, then it may as well not exist. It's
a bit scary how much control Google has over the Internet.

~~~
thisjepisje
_If you can 't find something [through Google], then it may as well not
exist._

If, for example, a director wants their movie removed from Google search
results, it will still show up in searches on imdb, wikipedia, rottentomatoes
&c., and is thus accessible to quite a large number of internet users.

~~~
return0
how often do you use wikipedia's or imbd's search function?

~~~
learnstats2
At least once per day, each. Why would I use google to search wikipedia or
imdb?

Both of those sites have now got search engines that are very effective; I
have a two character shortcut in my address bar thanks to DuckDuckGo.

~~~
Springtime
Direct browser addressbar searches do make it much easier to use a site's own
search. Certainly for Wikipedia my keyword search of 'w <query>' is used daily
to find things.

------
clamprecht
Is there a way to search through only the "forgotten" content? (from outside
the EU). That could be interesting.

------
HackinOut
Some details from Google:
[https://www.google.co.uk/policies/faq/](https://www.google.co.uk/policies/faq/)

------
trt
How many have been removed for copyright reasons?

~~~
magicalist
37 million requests...in the last month alone. I don't see a number for how
much they actually removed, though.

[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/)

edit: interesting, you can download the entire set of copyright removal URLs,
who requested the removal, the number of URLs in the request, etc[1]. I wonder
if anyone has done any research on the kind and distribution of those URLs
yet.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/data/)

------
znowi
> Sometimes we even receive requests to remove content 'from the Internet'

Today Google resembles the once dominating Internet Explorer of Microsoft.
Except one thing - it's a great search tool. Which means it's going to be very
hard to find a new "Firefox" [1] to provide a viable alternative.

[1] In case someone doesn't know, it was Firefox that spearheaded the break
out of the IE monopoly.

------
datashovel
It would be interesting to see if the law leaves loopholes where businesses
can use this as a competitive advantage. For example, what if I can request a
page be removed from search results if my name appears in a comment on a page
that promotes my competitor's business / products / services.

~~~
bduerst
It's just keyword linking, not complete URL removal from search.

You can ask that your name keyword in search doesn't go to the page with your
competitor's company, but keywords for your competitor and/or for your
product/service will still route there. It's still whack-a-mole. Users looking
for reviews will start searching within review sites as opposed to google
searching.

The worst impact here is that politicians could remove links between their
names and articles that are rightfully criticizing them.

~~~
datashovel
Thanks for the clarification. I'm still not totally convinced some clever
folks out there won't find ways to reduce search results for websites
promoting competitors. Google will have every reason to suspect they're doing
"the right thing" on some of these requests, but it's hard to imagine there
won't be some ulterior motive, or even just unintended consequences, behind
some of these requests that would not be obvious to the naked eye.

It's almost as if: not only do people who want keywords removed need to keep
an eye out, but people who don't want their pages removed from search results
will need to monitor this as well.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of disputes occur as a result of
this. An interesting social experiment if nothing else.

~~~
Kalium
Some people have already used this to hide negative reviews of themselves.

------
Marcus316
Are other search engines complying with this EU court ruling? Or do other
search engines just not matter?

~~~
tapp
Microsoft and Yahoo have reported they are complying as well.

------
seivadmas
Forgive my ignorance... but why would anyone want their URL 'forgotten'. If
they want to hide from the search engine, isn't that what robots.txt is for?

~~~
desdiv
If CNN has an article about my drunk driving record 10 years ago, I can force
Google to "forget" said CNN article, even though I don't control CNN.com's
robot.txt.

~~~
ars
No, they don't forget the article. They forget the link between your name and
the article - searching for other words in that article will still bring it
up.

------
happyscrappy
Google has not forgotten anything the results are censored for Europeans.

~~~
LukeB_UK
Hence the quotes

------
matt608
Is there away to prove the data is actually deleted? It's not really gone
forever is it, just removed from the search index. Other copies will have been
made by various agencies. I suppose for most purposes thats ok, but not all.

~~~
magicalist
well, as covered in the article, it isn't deleted. And right to be forgotten
only applies in the EU anyways...the searches should work the same outside the
EU.

~~~
tapp
For now. The EU is pushing for more:

“De-listing decisions must be implemented in such a way that they guarantee
the effective and complete protection of data subjects’ rights and that EU law
cannot be circumvented"...

Context is extending RTBF to Google.com, but that seems like a slippery slope.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/27/eu-to-
goog...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/27/eu-to-google-
expand-right-to-be-forgotten-to-googlecom)

