Oi, Google! Remove links to that removed story, yells forceful ICO

Google has been ordered to remove links referencing a story it had already removed, Blighty's information watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, said late Thursday. The search engine had previously removed links relating to an individual's minor criminal offence from more than ten years, following a take-down request …

[Anonymous Coward]

so the question is

who did something that normal libel rules can't remove because it's true

That wants *you* not to know about it

And have the power and contacts to steer this rediculousness (Google being some kind of easy target against a conventional media outlet)

And more importantly, what is it they did that they dont want *you* to know about

something fairly dank going on here

Everything else here seems collateral

[DavCrav]

"who did something that normal libel rules can't remove because it's true

That wants *you* not to know about it"

For example, someone who gets their head stuck in railings when they were a teenager and the news got on television, and this is the only thing that appears when people search for their name?

[Jason Bloomberg]

Most criminals have the right to their conviction being spent. That's what the law provides for and grants certain rights of privacy which can be enforced. Those rights of privacy extend to non-criminals too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please remove the link...

To the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article... etc...etc...

[A Non e-mouse]

Re: Please remove the link...

Might as well just delete the entire Internet!

[adrianww]

Re: Please remove the link...

As the years have gone by and I've watched the web grow into the seething morass of stupidity and insanity that we see today, I begin to wonder whether "delete the entire Internet" actually isn't such a bad idea.

I'd even go as far as to recommend nuking the entire site from orbit. After all, it's the only way to be sure...

[DavCrav]

Re: Please remove the link...

"Please remove the link...

To the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article about removing the link to the article... etc...etc..."

Yes, good joke. But this is talking about removing the link when searching for the person's name. Of course Google was going to get slapped down for this. It's like being told to move a massive sign from the front lawn of your house, and putting it on the other side of the lawn, and saying "I've moved it".

[Joe Harrison]

Re: Please remove the link...

How is it even possible; Google would have to check for that person's name for the rest of the lifetime of the internet. What happens a year from now when someone posts "... yes and don't forget how they made them take down that link to Mr. Blobbo Boggins and his inflatable friend." Suddenly Google is back in the poo again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Please remove the link...

I'm guessing that person won't want to be setting up an online business

[The Mole]

Re: Please remove the link...

Something along the lines of:

if search.query contains "Blobbo Boggins and result contains "inflatable friend" then exclude result from list.

Annoying but no different to what they do with safe search or other types of illegal content they have to block

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Please remove the link...

Does that mean that a completely different person who shares the same name "Blobbo Boggins" can now do unmentionable things to his "inflatable friend" with impunity?

[Fluffy Bunny]

Re: Please remove the link...

"if search.query contains "Blobbo Boggins and result contains "inflatable friend" then exclude result from list."

But have you ever tried to do that for query sets containing millions of exclusions - on a search engine that gets millions hits a minute?

[VinceH]

Re: Please remove the link...

"But have you ever tried to do that for query sets containing millions of exclusions - on a search engine that gets millions hits a minute?"

That would be the wrong way to do it. I don't run a mafuckinghoosive search engine, but if I did, I would:

(a) De-index search results from the name at the point the request is made, and

(b) Establish the reason for the de-indexing request, and add that filter into my spidering/indexing algorithm - so that any new pages mentioning the reason don't get linked to the affected party's name in the first place. (This would be much cheaper than filtering at the point of a query).

It's still flawed - particularly from the 'forgotten' information still getting out. If at some point in the future someone wants to write about Blobbo Boggins and his inflatable friend and have the results indexed, they'll just devise a new way to describe the inflatable friend - but it should mitigate the problem you point out.

[Gannon (J.) Dick]

Re: Please remove the link...

@Fluffy,

Algorithmic practicality is an "angle" in the journalistic sense, not an ethic in the "poor widdle Google" sense.

Can artificially intelligent machines fall for the ol' "Refication Fallacy" ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29

I don't know about robots, but I do know the trolls atop Google are betting you will. It is time to send them to bed without supper.

[Just Enough]

Re: Please remove the link...

"if search.query contains "Blobbo Boggins and result contains "inflatable friend" "

So what of queries that contain "Blobbo Boggins" and result contains "air-filled acquaintance"? Or "Blobbo Boggins" and result contains "embarrassing incident that we can't mention, but here's a link to a Wikipedia page that explains it in dry factual detail".

This censorship will work, within the narrow confines of how it is enforced, but it will never stop people finding out about Blobbo Boggins' embarrassing past.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Please remove the link...

Obviously, the only way to be sure that Google will never provide any link to Blobbo's indiscretion ever is:

if search.query contains "Blobbo Boggins", then return "No results found".

Huzzah! We're on our way to creating "non persons"!

[Warm Braw]

[This post never existed]

[Captain DaFt]

[link to link about post]

[John Tappin]

Convictions can be spent

but removing historic newspaper articles or court records is still censorship...

Spent does not mean the ministry of truth has to change history after 10 years...

[Fraggle850]

Re: Convictions can be spent

The historic articles will not be removed, they just won't feature in search results. I fail to see the harm, it's not censorship - you can still go to the original documents.

The wider issue is not just about individuals with spent convictions, if I remember correctly an early European case that led to this was a Spanish campsite owner who's business was being adversely affected by search engines giving top ranking results referencing a horrific accident from the '70s when people searched for his campsite. The accident was nothing to do with him or his business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Convictions can be spent

"The historic articles will not be removed, they just won't feature in search results"

as long as they don't appear in library searches through old newspapers, fine.

If it's one rule for Internet, one rule for print media, not fine at all.

[corestore]

Re: Convictions can be spent

"The historic articles will not be removed, they just won't feature in search results. I fail to see the harm, it's not censorship - you can still go to the original documents."

Please explain how censorship of Google search results isn't censorship?

"It's not censorship, we would never censor, those are just search results..."

"We would never infringe free speech - but that's not 'speech', that's propaganda..."

"Of course we would never ban rifles! But that's not a rifle, that's an 'assault weapon'..."

Redefine the meaning of a word and you can get away with *anything*, eventually!

[Fraggle850]

Re: Convictions can be spent

@ corestore: Such things never boil down to simplistic, binary choices, despite what politicians might have you believe.

Taking your example of the right to bear arms and classification of weapons: at what point on the scale of possible weaponry do you draw a line and say sorry, not that one? RPGs? Shoulder-mounted SAMs? ICBMs? Suitcase dirty bombs? Weapons-grade anthrax? I'm not having a go at the fact that you can arm yourself, just highlighting the fact that there are grey areas.

Europe has enacted a right to privacy and I can see the merit of that in some cases as well as the possibility of abuse in others. The trick is in getting the balance right; I'm realisitc and don't suppose that they necessarily will but even so I think it is important to try.

[corestore]

Re: Convictions can be spent

*covers his ears to protect them from the deafening WHOOSH*

[ggcotanza]

Re: Convictions can be spent

This has nothing to do with free speech. It has nothing to do with anything really. It's about de-indexing articles that contain irrelevant person information about a random individual. "what THEY dont want YOU to KNOW?!?!" No, that's idiotic. Idiots.

[ggcotanza]

Re: Convictions can be spent

What are you even talking about? How is Google de-indexing/not including certain search results that link to irrelevant personal information on an individual from ten years ago a matter of free speech? What non-sense. You're the reason people are so stupid.

It's not censorship, either. You know Facebook gives you the option to not include your profile in Google results? Is that censorship as well, self-censorship? Should Facebook take out that option because it infringes on your 'free speech' to find everyone's Facebook profile on Google? Do you realize how stupid that all sounds?

It's unfortunate, because while you're arguing about rather or not Google should de-index an embarrassing story about some random dude from 10 years ago, actual shit is happening and it isn't getting the attention it deserves. I hate you.

[Aedile]

Re: Convictions can be spent

It's not censored and you can see the originals. Just look in the cellar:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-the-plans-were-on-display-on-display-i-eventually

[JimmyPage]

Out of interest ...

what are Bing doing ?

[Fraggle850]

Re: Out of interest ...

About 0.001% of Internet searches?

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Out of interest ...

"About 0.001% of Internet searches?"

99% of which are "Blobbo Baggins and his inflatable friend"

[GrumpenKraut]

Re: Out of interest ...

It had a photo of itself taken which features at totally unrelated news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Out of interest ...

perhaps Google should do a screenshot of the deleted search results, and use that as a placeholder to return when anyone searches for the now-blocked stuff: "Due to a 'right to be forgotten' request the page that you have requested as not been found. Had it been found it would have looked like this, but we didn't find it, sorry about that."

[Velv]

If something is on public record then it should be searchable. Just because the Internet makes that search easier doesn't stop the fact from being a fact, no matter how old it is.

Instead of removing results from a search, perhaps search engines should be required to highlight the age of articles, including a warning: "this article is more than 10 years old and the information may be out of date" (or such time as is appropriate, and yes, I know Google puts a date on the results already, but not everyone notices it).

If there really is to be "a right to be forgotten", then that right should permit the person to remove the original information, not filter search results.

[Fraggle850]

@ Velv

A reasonable point, perhaps bouncing it down the results to the third or fourth page would be better?

I suspect removing the original information is going to be much more like whack-a-mole than just getting the search engines to stop linking to it; anything juicy will tend to propagate across multiple blogs/sites.

[Dan 55]

Rewriting history

Isn't this what Orwell warned about?

[Warm Braw]

Re: Rewriting history

Orwell has already been dealt with.

[Anonymous Coward]

This right to be forgotten BS really does fell like the beginnings of the Ministry of Truth. We've already started the eternal war, and we found a better target than another nation... terrorism. GCHQ are the forerunner to the Thought Police. The Ministry of Love has already established a beachhead in Guantanamo Bay. It's too early to tell who Big Brother will ultimately be based on, but Jeremy Corbyn is a shoe-in for Rutherford or one of the other 2 members of the original revolution who see themselves overthrown.

[Bob Dole (tm)]

Streisand

Imagine what would happen if Streisand asked google to forget her. There would be almost nothing left.

[The Mighty Spang]

what bullshit

are they going round taking a marker pen to the local library archives of newspapers? if not - tell the ICO to go fuck itself.

they should be more interested in local councils whos voter registrar forms are a cunningly worded invitation to have ones details sold to the highest bidder. i.e. you get shoved on the public list with no option NOT to be shoved on the public list. They then tell you about how you should write in and have your details removed from the public list. I'm assuming thats after they have sold your details to scumags....