Congratulations EU. You have now joined the proud ranks of governments that censor the internet.

[sperbonzo]

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/03/g...ill-lynch-ceo/

Welcome to the happy Google search page. Where links to historical articles can be deleted at the request of cowards / people with fragile reputations. Where the former boss of Merrill Lynch, Stan O'Neal, is a fresh, dynamic and highly employable banker, rather than a disgraced executive who contributed to the sub-prime lending crisis of 2007. Where truth-telling journalists like Robert Peston wake up to find that their articles have been cast into oblivion within the EU, thanks to a blanket ruling by a bunch of clueless lawyers the European Court of Justice. Where facts and opinions no longer count for anything if someone, somewhere doesn't like them.


http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581

This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google:

Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/ robertpeston/2007/10/merrills_mess.html

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe.

Which means that to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people.

So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?


Robert Peston: Removed article "was in public interest"

Well it has responded to someone exercising his or her new "right to be forgotten", following a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it.
Track record

The ruling stemmed from a case brought by Mario Costeja González after he failed to secure the deletion of a 1998 auction notice of his repossessed home that was reported in a Spanish newspaper.

Now in my blog, only one individual is named. He is Stan O'Neal, the former boss of the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

My column describes how O'Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

Is the data in it "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant"?

Hmmm.

Most people would argue that it is highly relevant for the track record, good or bad, of a business leader to remain on the public record - especially someone widely seen as having played an important role in the worst financial crisis in living memory (Merrill went to the brink of collapse the following year, and was rescued by Bank of America).
Public interest

So there is an argument that in removing the blog, Google is confirming the fears of many in the industry that the "right to be forgotten" will be abused to curb freedom of expression and to suppress legitimate journalism that is in the public interest.

To be fair to Google, it opposed the European court ruling.

But its implementation of it looks odd, perhaps clumsy.

Maybe I am a victim of teething problems. It is only a few days since the ruling has been implemented - and Google tells me that since then it has received a staggering 50,000 requests for articles to be removed from European searches.

It has hired what it calls "an army of para legals" to process these requests."




.

[Rochard]

We shouldn't censor the internet in any way unless it's life threatening.

[RyuLion]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=mmmmmk
:p

[GregE]

Originally Posted by Rochard

We shouldn't censor the internet in any way unless it's life threatening.

Agreed 100%.

Used to be that censoring the web was the sort of thing that only happened in places like China, Iran or North Korea.

Now the thought police are asserting themselves in the first world as well

[CarlosTheGaucho]

A modern version of "re-writing" the history?

The big question is not only if, but also who should be able to authorize such removal from the search results.

This is a major Pandora's box opened right there.

[DerekMister33]

Shocking. Really shocking.

[ctggls]

What about the Us searched? Will bing follow with this?

[oppoten]

Your Google is fully on board, as well you know.

Jewish corporations as defenders of freedom of speech? Lol.

[TeenCat]

what what what? google is internet? google is piece of fucked up shit, and more they will dig deeper, more traffic to bing, which is much much better if you talk about torrent and tube links, google is fucked up pro piracy shit, bing gives affiliate and original paysites first ... who the fuck care how deep this shit google is digging? fuck off google! finaly they will become fucking useless for most of the surfers, and thats what me and i bet many of webmasters are waiting for ... howgh!

[Klen]

Honestly i actually see that as good move from EU/google but the problem is when you do changes it also causes problems like this one.But this was needed since a lot of people which did nothing wrong was having problem with bad info available on Internet.Beside,if you really want to find some info,you will find it no matter what kind of restrictions are set.

[tony286]

I think now we live in a time of revenge porn and where anyone can write whatever they write about you and it be picked up by google and they are basically anonymous. The internet takes out that whole actions have consequences because they can hide.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/04/digital-theatre/
Google Super Successful At Spinning Europe?s Right To Be Forgotten Ruling As Farce