Google gets take-down requests after European court ruling: source
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is already getting requests to remove objectionable personal information from its search engine after Europe’s top court ruled that subjects have the “right to be forgotten,” a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is already getting requests to remove objectionable personal information from its search engine after Europe’s top court ruled that subjects have the “right to be forgotten,” a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The world’s No. 1 Internet search company has yet to figure out how to handle an expected flood of requests after Tuesday’s ruling, said the source, who is not authorized to speak on the record about the issue.
The decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which affects the region’s 500 million citizens, requires that Internet search services remove information deemed “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.” Failure to do so can result in fines.
“There’s many open questions,” Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday in response to a question about the ruling and its implications on Google’s operations.
“A simple way of understanding what happened here is that you have a collision between a right to be forgotten and a right to know. From Google’s perspective that’s a balance,” Schmidt said. “Google believes having looked at the decision, which is binding, that the balance that was struck was wrong.”
He was not asked about the recent take-down requests.
Google will need to build up an “army of removal experts” in each of the 28 European Union countries, including those where Google does not have operations, the source said.
SOURCE: REUTERS
At first read, this ruling is pure censorship. I don’t think the judge has that right to initiate a “censorship” ruling, and I don’t want ANYONE to be “appointed” my censor. It gives everyone the right to submit a take-down request for anything THEY find “objectionable” or irrelevant”. TRUTH doesn’t even enter into the determination. Think about all the reported wrong-doings, criminal or otherwise. The evil-doer could submit a take-down request, and Google would have to comply. The law-student or investigator researching the subject could never rely on using the internet as a resource. Any politician could request a take-down of every search item that didn’t make him/her “look” good. Ooooh, there’s so much more info that would be skewed because pages have been eliminated from an internet search.
There’s no way in he– that Google can be 100% sure that the take-down request comes from the individual that put the page up. And what if it’s a corporation making that request?