Spanish Man wins case against google

[Niamh.]

I tried to get a link for the story but I can't google him now :facepalm:

But yeah, basically the case where this guy had his house repossessed years ago and anyone who searches his name that comes up, said it's ruined his life so google have been told to remove his name from any google searches. It's a pretty big deal really. What do you think? Do you think it's a good move for protecting peoples privacy or do you see it as unfair censorship?

[Ammi]

..?..

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/5/13/1400001819078/Mario-Costeja-Gonz-lez-at-011.jpg


A Spanish man who has spent the past five years waging a legal battle against Google over the "right to be forgotten" on the internet has applauded a landmark European Court ruling against Google on Tuesday.

"Like anyone would be when you tell them they're right, I'm happy," Mario Costeja González told the Guardian over the phone from the north-western city of A Coruña. "I've been saying to people, if Google was good before, now it's perfect."

The ruling says that Google and other search engines must remove data from past results if requested to do so by a member of the public.

Costeja González's battle began in 2009, when Costeja he discovered that a Google search of his name pulled up legal notices from the late 1990s, and after a fruitless conforntation with the publishing newspaper he eventually found allies at Spain's data protection agency.

Tuesday's ruling has implications for all online search engines, in that it notes that European privacy law allows the public to request that links to private information be removed. The court specified that search engines operating in Europe must find a balance between offering information in the public interest and protecting people's rights to privacy and protection of personal data. When an agreement cannot be reached, the ruling said the matter can be taken to a local judge or regulator.

Complaints will be addressed on a case-by-case basis, an approach that should appease any worries Google might have had about freedom of expression, said Costeja. "They don't have to get rid of everything.

"I was fighting for the elimination of data that adversely affects people's honour, dignity and exposes their private lives. Everything that undermines human beings, that's not freedom of expression."

He framed the ruling as a decisive victory in a long-running battle over an idea. "People ask me how much I spent on this. It did cost me money but at the end all that's important is the fact that ideas won out." He refused to even estimate what he had personally spent on the case, saying that a number would only "dirty what was a fight for ideals".

For his lawyer, Joaquín Muñoz, a key point in Tuesday's ruling was the recognition that search engines are involved in processing data. "When you search for something in Google, they don't scour the entire internet for you and then give you a result. They've stored links, organised them and they show them based on a criteria they've decided upon." This act of processing information confers upon them responsibilities in certain cases, he added.

The ruling would now be used to address the more than 200 cases waiting in Spanish courts, he said, the majority of which involve asking Google to eliminate links. The cases will likely test the limits of this ruling; in one case, a plastic surgeon in Madrid has asked Google to remove a link to a 1991 El País report about a malpractice lawsuit launched against him after an allegedly botched breast surgery.

It's one of the many questions about the ruling to be answered in the days to come, said Muñoz. But on Tuesday he was content to bask in the idea that Abanlex, his tiny law firm based in Madrid, had taken on Google and won. "The resources Google has at their disposal aren't like those of any other citizens."

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/spain-everyman-google-mario-costeja-gonzalez

[Niamh.]

Thanks Ammi :love:

[Niamh.]

He's even more unforgettable now though since he's won the case :laugh:

[Ammi]

..I'm not sure I fully understand it, is it about injunctions against him that could be googled..?..

[Niamh.]

..I'm not sure I fully understand it, is it about injunctions against him that could be googled..?..

Basically if you put his name into a google search nothing should pop up even if there are other sites that have information on him I think

[MTVN]

Well it seems fair enough if it's private information really, I don't think it's something the public have any real need to have access to

[Niamh.]

Or maybe it's just to do with that one thing where he lost his house (cos I just googled his name and lots of things came up hhmmm)

[Scarlett.]

danananananananananana
SPANISHMAN

[Ammi]

Well it seems fair enough if it's private information really, I don't think it's something the public have any real need to have access to

..but then if it's private information, how would it be on the internet..?..

[Niamh.]

danananananananananana
SPANISHMAN

beautiful chewy :')

[Marsh.]

Right to be forgotten? I just googled him and it tells me all about everything. :umm2:

[Niamh.]

Right to be forgotten? I just googled him and it tells me all about everything. :umm2:

I know, now i don't understand what him winning actually means

[Ammi]

..Mario on his phone on google images...


http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74828000/jpg/_74828473_74828468.jpg

[Kizzy]

Your financial status shouldn't be googleable to be honest, having said that if you were a business associate or an employer you might need to know if you were solvent?
On the whole I think he was right to keep his private affairs private but you would think once published in a newspaper it would forever be in the public domain.

[MTVN]

..but then if it's private information, how would it be on the internet..?..

Hmm well I suppose it might not be private exactly, but quite personal that were it not for the internet would have been buried and forgotten about long ago. This article goes into it a bit more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27394751

Sixteen years ago, a Spaniard named Mario Costeja Gonzalez had hit financial difficulties.

To solve them, a property of his was put up for auction - the details of which were covered in a newspaper, which subsequently went online.

The auction happened in 1998, and with those troubles now behind him, Mr Gonzalez is keen to move on.

But there's a problem: whenever you search for his name, news about the auction still features prominently. He argued that this continued to damage his reputation, and should be removed from Google's search results.

On Tuesday, the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union agreed with him, and in doing so set a major precedent over what is referred to as the "right to be forgotten".

What is the 'right to be forgotten'?

The internet (almost) never forgets.

Google - and other search engines - are extremely efficient at crawling the web to find and store data. Even if websites are taken offline, a cache is kept - meaning they can still be accessed.

This is good for making the web as useful as possible, but bad if you don't like what it finds about you.

In Mr Gonzalez's case, Google must now remove the search results that come up about the auction of his property.

It is Mr Gonzalez's right, the EU says, for that information to be confined to history - or at least, a history only findable by the very dedicated. The information will still be online, just not indexed by the search engine.

The decision has wide-reaching implications.

The EU has been pushing heavily for a new law on data privacy - of which "right to be forgotten" is a key component - since it proposed guidelines in January 2012.

It argues that old, inaccurate or even just irrelevant data should be taken out of search results if the person involved requests it.

Eventually, the EU hopes the "right to be forgotten" principle will extend further. Those drunken pictures from your university days? The EU thinks you should have the right to demand that social networks get rid of them completely - as well as any bit of data on you they may hold.

If the full proposals are passed, firms that do not comply with the law could be fined around 1% of their global revenues.

More on the link

[Niamh.]

ahh right, it's only to do with that then? ^ That's not as dramatic as I thought after all :laugh:

[Ammi]

Hmm well I suppose it might not be private exactly, but quite personal that were it not for the internet would have been buried and forgotten about long ago. This article goes into it a bit more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27394751



More on the link

..so the information is still able to be googled, it's just harder to find or he won the right to have it harder to find, it's not definite it'll be removed...he won the case so the courts agreed with him but the reasons given of him having to sell the house because of financial difficulties 15 years ago don't seem to be something that would effect any business dealings now so it feels like there may have been something more about the story in 1998...hmmm...

[MTVN]

The information itself will still exist on the internet but you won't be able to find it through a google search I think, so it will effectively be buried for good (unless other search engines don't have to abide by this)

I think he just doesn't want to immediately be thought of as the guy who messed up financially and was forced to auction off his house because of it, which is what he was being most associated with presumably because it was one of the top results when his name was googled. It's fair enough for him to want it to be put behind him when it happened so long ago and isn't really of that much relevance or public interest now imo

[armand.kay]

-uses bing-

[Crimson Dynamo]

You cant erase it there are too many search engines

[Nedusa]

As I have said before........once it's out there it's out there for good.

No matter how it got out there once you put information onto social media sites you have no control over it.

So never put anything really personal onto any electronic format, even your own data is at risk as is anything stored in remote electronic storage facilities eg Apple i-cloud

[arista]

Yes in his case it was Wrong Data
as he had paid it.


But Others who what to delete their History can Feck Off

[arista]

-uses bing-


poor lil bing

[Samm]

-uses bing-

:laugh:

[Z]

Landmark case

[Ammi]

..it is a landmark case but do you really think it'll be able to be enforced though with all the potential sites who may have quoted some of it..?...

[James]

Strange decision to make Google remove links to publicly accessible web pages but not remove the original documents. If I've understood it right?

Could someone who has been convicted of a crime in the past claim 'right to be forgotten' and get a site to remove that person's name?

This story is quite interesting to me because, from time-to-time I get requests, sent in to this website, asking for a name to be removed from a thread.

I wonder if at some point in the future a Big Brother ex-housemate would ask for, and be allowed to have, all discussions about their time in the show to be removed?

[Marsh.]

Requests from ex members?

[James]

Requests from ex members?

Usually just general members of the public whose name has cropped up in the news stories posted on the forum. Sometimes the press have got their facts wrong about them.

[Kizzy]

Do you have any examples... without giving too much away? :)

[James]

Do you have any examples... without giving too much away? :)

Someone who wanted name removed where he or she was meant to have supported a teacher accused of assaulting badly-behaved pupils.

Another who said that, when a series of Big Brother was being shown a number of years ago, the press had falsely made out that she made an accusation against a BB housemate.

To name but two examples.

[Kizzy]

Someone who wanted name removed where he or she was meant to have supported a teacher accused of assaulting badly-behaved pupils.

Another who said that, when a series of Big Brother was being shown a number of years ago, the press had falsely made out that she made an accusation against a BB housemate.

To name but two examples.

Thanks, they're both serious accusations which would impact on their lives quite significantly if those did get out regularly...

[Ammi]

Strange decision to make Google remove links to publicly accessible web pages but not remove the original documents. If I've understood it right?

Could someone who has been convicted of a crime in the past claim 'right to be forgotten' and get a site to remove that person's name?

This story is quite interesting to me because, from time-to-time I get requests, sent in to this website, asking for a name to be removed from a thread.

I wonder if at some point in the future a Big Brother ex-housemate would ask for, and be allowed to have, all discussions about their time in the show to be removed?



..I find it all fascinating as well, I'm not sure that the official documents of this case can be removed so even if Google managed to locate and remove every website that had in some way quoted them, then they can carry on being referred to in other website in the future..I just don't know how this can be 'policed'..?...

..but also, (I think..) for this case, it seems to be about maybe people who are searching him or have been searching him to find out any 'business' type information, to find out if he's someone they should do business with possibly..?..and his finances in 1998 coming up could prejudiced them, perhaps..?..I don't know but what about things like the celebrities who have been linked/mentioned in connection with things they haven't done..you know Yewtree investigations an such the like on forums like this and DS etc...if this is a landmark case for future similar ones to win then would these forums either have to delete/remove all 'damaging' posts/threads or be taken off Google..?..and then there are things like Gerry and Kate McCann and investigations like that and if Madeleine's case was to be solved and them cleared..then all of those discussions/speculations..they would have to be removed..?..or the forum taken off Google so that if people searched..'Big Brother forums' it wouldn't come up..?..those are just some I can think of atm but there must be many many things over the years and this Spanish case dates back to something in 1998...or am I just not understanding this properly...

[smeagol]

good for him. its actually a big deal. most companies and jobs everywhere now will google you . and some info shouldn't be allowed to just be out there. facebook is another one that gets checked. its common practice now.