Be Excellent To Each Other

12000 people have apparently asked Google to scrub them from their search.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/02 ... rget_them/

Now call me cynical, but this seems a good way for the various agencies to target people for further investigation...

Because there are things about these individuals that are serious enough to warrant investigation and that can currently be found from a Google search on their name but that no law enforcement agency has actually noticed yet?

I don't know whether you know (you probably due but for completeness) this comes from a European Court of Justice ruling that people have the right to be forgotten. Essentially, you can ask Google to forget you but then again Google can tell you to go fuck yourself. They're not obliged to do anything.

It might lead to some further satellite court cases but I like that Europe is, once again, championing the rights of individuals.

The whole point was if they want to be off google, then the thought process of various agencies may well be "what are they hiding that can't be found by a google search"

Are you suggesting that "various agencies" would have access to Google's data about those people that have requested their data removed?

Who are these various agencies out of interest? The few example's I've heard of people wanting to remove their information involve people who have been sacked once someone at work has googled their name and found past indiscretions (e.g. cunty work cunts).

If, say, I'd murdered someone (I haven't) and wanted that removed from Google, then Google will probably just tell me to piss off when they eventually get round to reading my form written in my own blood and urine.

It's not about being 'off Google', it's about requesting that certain specific results connected to their name be removed; so they're looking to hide specific information that's currently in the wild and thus available for anyone to see.

Google might well make it public who's asking for stuff to be removed (they same way they already do with the Chilling Effects site which lists DMCA takedown repsonses), it depends whether the actual request for removal constitutes private information or whether it's just the actual search result itself that need to be hidden.

I have asked them to remove all results for "Trousers" + "Keeping it in your"

I'm still awaiting a response.

Well yes, but you knew what I meant by the phrase "off google"

You don't think that putting your head above the parapet like this is something that GCHQ, CIA etc... would be interested in. It's not about the information you want removed, it's about the fact that you have requested information to be removed. That would be a person further up my list if I was checking...

Yes. Did you miss the whole Prism thing?

No, I didn't; I thought you thought these were requests to somehow be removed entirely from Google search results because that would've made more sense of your argument.



I don't see how it's putting your head above the parapet when the information you're requesting be removed is already publically available. Requesting something be removed is only worthy of further attention if someone doesn't know what it is you're requesting be removed, because then obviously you'd want to know what and why, which just isn't the case here. If any agency wants to build a list of "people who've done something dodgy that's already so well known it appears in a Google search and so we should keep an eye on them" they can and will have already done that because that information is already freely available. I don't see what this changes?

Because they have another list now, which is people that have requested something to be removed, if you weren't on the radar before, you certainly will be now.

Crikey, that's too tinfoil hat even for me.

I am pretty certain that they will already be on a list, but that they will move up that list. There are a lot of people to check and the recognition algorithms will be based on a whole host of things which constitute "suspicious behaviour". I imagine this would fall in that category and so would increase the weighting of these people. I don't think it will increase it drastically, but there is a chance that it would take them over some threshold which causes them to be investigated when previously they would not have been.

Pretty sure the things I google for have me on a few lists already.

Seeing as the judgement concerns the Right to Privacy (rather than dealings with companies or some such - I didn't know of the Chilling Effects site until you posted it) then listing the people who want their information removed, and/or the request, seems entirely at odds with the judgement and would lead to further litigation.

Google (and any other search enginge) would be obliged to remove "from the list of results displayed following a search made on the basis of a person’s name links to web pages, published by third parties and containing information relating to that person" according to the ECJ judgement, so I'd say that links to webpages that list a person's name following a request to remove would clearly be a breach as it's a breach of privacy.

Well, yes, this new list exists but I don't see how it's of any interest? We're talking about stuff that's currently publically available, so you're either on a list already because they think you're dodgy from looking at that info (and other stuff they're privvy too) or you're not. The act of asking for something to be removed doesn't change what that thing is, so why would it change how bad it makes you look?

I can totally see how posting details of these things might not be in the spirit of the ruling but that's also true of the Chilling Effects DMCA stuff which Google do as a protest to the whole thing and, as they're on record as not liking this new requirement, I thought it possible they might do a similar thing. I realise it's different because we're talking people rather than companies here so it might be more stringent, but I wondered if the letter of the ruling might give them leeway to do something like that even if it meant further arguing about it; which they'd totally welcome.

But I don't know shit about it of course so this is all just so much pointless pondering.

I've asked for some search terms to be removed from Yahoo, and by jove, I think it has worked!*


*May not be the result of any removal of search results. Our survey tested 71 women, 3 of which expressed a preference. Terms and Conditions apply.

Bobby put it better than I obviously have been

Clearly this joke worked better the first time around.