EU backs 'right to be forgotten' in Google privacy case

[dipsydoodle]

Last edited Tue May 13, 2014, 08:04 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: BBC News

A top EU court has ruled Google must amend some search results at the request of ordinary people in a test of the so-called "right to be forgotten".

The European Union Court of Justice said links to "irrelevant" and outdated data should be erased on request.

The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google's search results infringed his privacy.

Google said the ruling was "disappointing".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27388289

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'Right to be forgotten': EU court rules Google must amend results on request.

The European judges made clear that in their view the EU data protection directive already established a "right to be forgotten". This appears to pre-empt lengthy negotiations within the EU over a new data protection directive which could establish a limited "right to be forgotten".

The judges said they had found that the inclusion of links in the Google results related to an individual who wanted them removed "on the grounds that he wishes the information appearing on those pages relating to him personally to be 'forgotten' after a certain time" was incompatible with the existing data protection law.

They said the data that had to be erased could "appear to be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive … in the light of the time that had elapsed". They added that even accurate data that had been lawfully published initially could "in the course of time become incompatible with the directive".

In technical terms the ruling establishes that a search engine such as Google must be regarded as a "data controller" under the data protection laws in those EU countries where it establishes a branch to promote and sell advertising.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/right-to-be-forgotten-eu-court-google-search-results

[starroute]

1. One more bad decision by people who don't understand the internet

And have no idea of the far-reaching consequences of trying to scrub every link that contains a reference to some past event. For example, it would immediately make it impossible to find any stories reporting on this EU court decision.

Horrible, horrible idea.

[Demeter]

2. The EU must think

1) data can be burned, destroyed, made irretrievable (it can't)

2) Google is fit to do such work (it isn't)

3) People won't understand a corrected record (we can't all be as dumb as the EU; statistically, that's impossible)

[Sunlei]

3. This is a RW dream to scrub everything off the internet.we need a mirror google that lives forever.

never forget!