A list of search results omitted due to the “Right to be forgotten”

http://hiddenfromgoogle.com/index.html

by afaqurk • 12 years ago

158 83 12 years ago

hiddenfromgoogle.com

itamarhaber• 12 years ago

LOL - so now google.com + hiddenfromgoogle.com == the entire internets!

Torn• 12 years ago

I wonder if google indexes hiddenfromgoogle, or if they'll exempt them

oneeyedpigeon• 12 years ago

Indexed [1]. Even comes complete with the "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe" message.

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Ahiddenfromgoogle.co...

chton3• 12 years ago

This is going to unleash hell when it gets big enough to be near the top google search results. Not only will anybody googling somebody know what they did, they'll know the person wanted it removed.

I wonder how long it will take for google to de-list the site.

ISL• 12 years ago

An interesting problem -- is Google forced by the EU ruling to de-list anything related to the de-listing of a page?

chton3• 12 years ago

This is going to lead to super- and hyper-injunction levels of stupid.

_delirium2• 12 years ago

Not simply for commenting on the de-listing, but if the page is republishing information that's considered a violation of privacy in the EU, it's still a violation of privacy. This would be clearest in the case of e.g. compromising pictures of high-school kids or other such non-public figures. If you started a site reposting those pictures after Google delists the original sites that published them, obviously your site would also be subject to delisting.

unhammer• 12 years ago

So now it's a "Right to a Streisand effect"

RexRollman• 12 years ago

Out of curiosity, how is Bing handling this same situation? It applies to them as well, correct?

logicallee• 12 years ago

They actually handle this really well! You can never find anything.

Someone• 12 years ago

I cannot find it on Microsoft.com or bing.com, but apparently, their position is: "We’re currently working on a special process for residents of the European Union to request blocks of specific privacy-related search results on Bing in response to searches on their names. Given the many questions that have been raised about how the recent ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union should be implemented, developing an appropriate system is taking us some time. We’ll be providing additional information about making requests soon."

(http://microsoft-news.com/microsoft-is-still-working-on-righ...)

hosay1234• 12 years ago

Perhaps the list would be more representative if it included at least a few victims of sexual exploitation, or teenagers who previously had trouble getting naked images of themselves removed from servers hosted outside the EU. Ideally it would also include a link to every child porn web site on the IWF's blacklist, as used by at least the UK.

The problem with simply listing known cases where the "censorship" mechanism has some inefficiencies is that it hides the many cases where it can have a very real benefit to peoples' lives. The current implementation of the EU ruling leaves a lot to be desired, but let's not challenge its intent - restoring an element of privacy and security that search engines have been strip mining for their own benefit for over a decade.

Karunamon2• 12 years ago

Let's definitely challenge its intent. We're talking about public figures in some cases, here. I'd say the right of the public to know and freedom of speech (the concept, not the law) trumps "privacy" (aka a weak attempt to suppress publicly known facts via legislative diktat) on the open internet.

Look at what's being taken down here...

I hope:

* That this site gets mirrored en masse,

* That the EU regulators get a taste of the Streisand effect and how that applies to censorship

* That anyone who filed a censorship request (that's all this is, just dressed up in more flowery language) learns how the internet works.

nemetroid• 12 years ago

Let's definitely challenge its intent. We're talking about public figures in some cases

That's hardly challenging its intent.

_delirium2• 12 years ago

We're talking about public figures in some cases

The decision explicitly lists that as a legitimate exemption: search engines may reject removal requests for information concerning someone who has a "public role". If Google took down information pertaining to a public figure, it is probably their error. Now you can argue that this decision will in practice lead to many such errors, but that's a slightly different attack on the decision (arguing that it's impractical to implement accurately vs. arguing that it's in principle wrong, even when implemented accurately, are at least conceptually different criticisms).

nmrm8• 12 years ago

This is literally the exact same argument as "security trumps privacy".

NSA et al. argue that they need to know about everyone's dirty laundry in order to protect civil society from terrorists (or whatever).

You argue that the public needs at-your-fingertips access to everyone's dirty laundry in order to protect civil society from (idk? dictatorship that will inevitably ensue if sleazy reporters don't get their ad revenue?)

How about this alternative: whenever something actually important is de-listed, concerned citizens can mirror en masse. But when some trivial bit of gossipy sleaze reporting that no on cares about is de-listed, we let it die its rightful death.

I see no reason to Streisand-effect private citizens trying to rebuild their life after some reporter decided to make a quick buck profiting off of a single stupid mistake. The fact that you're so gung-ho about contributing to these people's continued misfortune in the name of your political agenda is deeply troubling.

cbr• 12 years ago

Why would the site need to be mirrored? If it's run by an American, hosted in the US, and doesn't do business in the EU then (not a lawyer) it's US law not EU law that applies. And (again, not a lawyer) under US law posting facts like this is completely legal.

jcfrei• 12 years ago

The fundamental problem without a "right to be forgotten" is that missteps and deliberate mischief are not covered equally by journalists. the news making process is not a perfectly efficient system (ie. not all cases get covered equally) - some cases simply get covered because they are funny, just filled a remaining gap in the newspaper, were especially bizarre, were very embarrassing, etc. other missteps (of similar gravity) do not get covered. this law allows such people to counter their misfortune, while the cases which are actually important to the public still remain to be seen for everybody. If you look at hiddenfromgoogle.com, it links to quite a few of such cases. They are to a large extent mundane and exaggerated stories (which are typical for dailymail and the guardian). They carry no/very little importance for the general public - however can be very incriminating for the individual itself.

chton3• 12 years ago

I agree. Since it would also be unethical for them to include cases of abuse or the naked images, the premise of the site is flawed. They want to show us the good and bad sides of the ruling, but can only show the bad side without doing bad themselves.

maximumoverload• 12 years ago

I very much doubt there is any child porn website, available on clearweb, indexed by google.

(I am not talking about eepsites/tor hidden services here. But those are not indexed by Google.)

hosay1234• 12 years ago

Hmm.. why not? Isn't that a form of censorship?

ChrisPebble• 12 years ago

I think the site can still be useful without being balanced. Highlighting collateral damage/silly consequences of a law is a useful service as the public (in my experience) tends to have a low tolerance for too much collateral damage regardless of the intent or positive outcomes of a law.

In this case the EU's ruling "leaves a lot to be desired" is nice way of saying it's unworkable given the complexities of the real world. I don't know what the proper solution would be but I do appreciate someone highlighting silly or potentially harmful consequences of an existing law.

nmrm8• 12 years ago

Did you read the articles on the site (tone o fcuriosity, not indignation)?

* The Daniels-Dwyer article serves no obvious public good.

* The post-it thing is a huge wtf. No idea why anyone would even care.

* The train thing is embarrassing; again, reporting on this amounts to gossip mongering for cash and serves no public good.

* The Osborne thing seems like a politically-motivated intrusion into the private life of a politician's brother. Again, trash reporting.

So unless you disagree that these all amount to unhelpful gossip mongering (well, except to the wallet of a lazy reporter/news agency), a little less than half of the unbalanced results demonstrate no harm to the public good.

edit: tone clarification. Also, I agree with your last paragraph.

givan3• 12 years ago

Censorship is bad no matter what it tries to hide, all the elements in the sentimental list you compiled falls in the category of either illegal or something for which is easy to get a court order to remove.

aragot• 12 years ago

The HN population is usually very skeptical about matters related to censorship. What I see here is a 50-50 proportion of agreement. It's startingly enormous for a law about the internet.

nmrm8• 12 years ago

Even many of the sites currently on the list seem like "not a big deal". E.g. petty theft by private citizens, gossip, etc.

The only reason some of the currently listed sites even exist is that some reporter figured they could make a few bucks of ad revenue and didn't care about other's privacy. Removing them does absolutely no harm to society; I have no problem with starving sleazy reporters out of their jobs.

edit: the law is clearly unworkable, but I'm a huge fan of its intent.

ElliotH• 12 years ago

Not entirely clear why you're conflating the IWF list with the EU Right to be Forgotten. They're different systems run in different ways by different groups.

hosay1234• 12 years ago

This list is a way of archiving the actions of censorship on the Internet. It is up to the reader to decide whether our liberties are being upheld or violated by the recent rulings by the EU.

It cannot present a balanced view of "censorship" to the reader without exhaustively examining examples of the kinds of "censorship" that it's complaining about that are already in use - be it the EU ruling, the IWF watchlist, or the search engines' long documented, voluntary self-censorship of child pornography.

So far, the only examples presented are those where the system is shown to be "inefficient" – if it really wants to be honest and balanced, it needs to find and include all the cases where the "censorship" is functioning as intended.

cliveowen2• 12 years ago

You're way off track, and I guess it's because you're not European and thus not privy on the laws dictated by the European Parliament. The right to be forgotten is one of those rights that put the power of having factually incorrect information changed or retracted in the hands of citizens. A news site reporting about a teenage girl having her naked pictures all over the Internet isn't covered by the right as long as the information reported is true and verifiable. The same holds for your other examples.

nmrm8• 12 years ago

Doesn't this magnify grandparent's point? Each of his examples is doubly important if it's actually factually incorrect.

graeme• 12 years ago

Do you have a source? My impression from news stories is that the right to be forgotten applies to events no longer pertinent. "Factually incorrect" doesn't seem to be part of the standard.

Actually, "factually incorrect" tends to already be covered by libel laws. You can sue a newspaper that maligns you with false facts.

Whereas, the right to be forgotten would seem to cover things such as nude photos, which in most cases are no longer pertinent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten#Current_l...

I'm open to being wrong about this.

icebraining• 12 years ago

The Spanish Costeja case shows that's not true [1]. The information ordered to be unlisted was true.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v_Gonz%C3%A1lez

EpicEng2• 12 years ago

I agree that most reporting on this are completely ignoring the upside. My mother was wrongfully accused of a crime nearly ten years ago. It took eight years of fighting the charges (going bankrupt in the process) before they were finally dropped.

However, you can still find the charges as soon as you type her name into Google, and that's all it takes. She was a lawyer; now she can't get anything but the most menial work. I wish she could exercise her "right to be forgotten".

ars• 12 years ago

The target is wrong. Your mother (and the other people in the EU) should be targeting the newspapers and other places that actually have the information.

Not the search engine.

A newspaper would probably refuse to remove the story altogether, but they might be willing to add a note saying the charges were dropped.

There's a difference between removing false or misleading information (like in your case) and trying to hide your true history (like most of the EU cases I'm hearing about).

ps4fanboy• 12 years ago

Wont someone think of the children

X4• 12 years ago

“Right to be forgotten” – the creative word for censorship. Newspeak written by the Ministry of Truth.

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/

buzzkills• 12 years ago

The Stan O'Neil one is incorrect. Google spokes persons was on BBC Radio the other day and stated that it was one of the commenters on the article that requested the removal.

Here I found a source: http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/07/04/google-takedown-requ...

joosters• 12 years ago

I heard this too - this site needs to be careful that it isn't pushing false information. Could it viewed as defamatory, I wonder?

DanBC5• 12 years ago

Thanks for mentioning this.

You can find the article for almost any combination of relevant search terms, so long as you do not include the name of one particular commenter.

userbinator• 12 years ago

This reminds me that sometimes search results will have "results were removed from this page due to DMCA complaint, click here to view it" and then you can go through and see the whole list of URLs that were removed... and they're often the torrent/warez sites with the real pirated content, so it's almost like they added a "pirate mode" filter. (I don't pirate anything these days, so I don't need it, but still a little amusing that Google is basically taking the "removed from search results" rather literally.)

leni536• 12 years ago

Actually the DMCA complaint list is quite useful and I used it many times. However since duckduckgo is quite good and does not give a damn about these DMCA complaint lists I don't need to use google's DMCA lists anymore.

krick• 12 years ago

So the moral is simple: in the 21th century you have no right to be forgotten. Not sure if it's actually fine.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

The "right to be forgotten" is the "right" to suppress true speech by others, and is in fundamental opposition to the right of free speech. Its a close cousin of the forms of libel laws where truth is not a defense that suppress true and accurate criticism, and the recognition that you can't have that kind of thing and free speech at the same time isn't a 21st century observation.

Its also, from a pragmatic standpoint, about equivalent to attempting to command the tides by law.

gaius2• 12 years ago

OMG they're stealing my rights!!!

Except not really. Google, despite what many might like to think, is not an "official" entity, it's a private company. They aren't disseminating information for the public good, whatever that is, but so they can slap an ad on it and make some profits. So what if Jo(e) Bloggs did something embarrassing a decade ago? If one of your friends was constantly bringing up things from years ago, you'd get tired of them doing so pretty quickly. Why should Google get to do it to make some money off of it? And what sort of gossip monger even wants this to be possible?

DerpDerpDerp• 12 years ago

There's a distinctly 21st century flavor to being able to store all the banal life mistakes indefinitely, to dig them up later if we ever need dirt on a particular person.

Before it was varying levels of unprovable (ie, not photographs or verifiable sources) and bandwidth limited (people could only store so much information; sources weren't interlinked for quick queries).

So it's actually quite likely that when we drafted our laws, this was an implicit right by the nature of technology, and considered a natural part of the bounds of specifically enumerated rights.

We should make sure, as technology removes traditional limits on what we can do, that we adequately adjust our laws to reflect that change.

x1798DE2• 12 years ago

I have to say, I often find myself at odds with taking a rights-based approach to this sort of thing first. It may not be possible to be forgotten on today's internet, and whether that's a good or a bad thing, it obviates the need to discuss whether you have a right to such a thing.

(That said, having links posted on a website about forgotten links is probably way lower impact than having them show up on the first page of a google search for your name. I imagine that most people would be satisfied with this level of obfuscation of their past.)

fragsworth• 12 years ago

So if this list is published, won't this have kind of a Streisand effect for people who request to be removed from Google search results?

known2• 12 years ago

Netcraft Risk Rating is 10/10 http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://hiddenfro...

personZ• 12 years ago

Because it's a brand new domain running on AWS.

known2• 12 years ago

Google's search removal request URL under European Data Protection law.

https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=we...

x1798DE2• 12 years ago

I imagine this won't be a popular opinion, but I don't see why it is necessary for this site to populate the list using javascript when server-side scripting would suffice.

Maybe they're trying to fool search bots so their site won't get delisted? I'm fairly sure Google at least has a bot built on Chrome (or rather Chrome was built around their search bot) that executes JS just fine.

Unfortunately, all it does is make a site that doesn't degrade well with scripting turned off.

givan3• 12 years ago

Most of the things I see in the comments from the supporters of the law are selfish arguments, what if Joe couldn't delete his ugly story from the past, everyone wants this tool, maybe they want to remove something in the future about themselves, it might come in handy, they want it so badly that they are willing to sacrifice freedom of speech, maybe Joe should be more careful instead of trying to bury what he did to get away because Joe might become someone important and we should know things that otherwise will get buried.

maccard• 12 years ago

This page is almost 1MB downloaded, including 5 fonts, bootstrap, angular, and jquery. It does not need to be this complicated. My facebook homepage, including images, is smaller than this site.

kghose• 12 years ago

Let's face it, this is simply an attempt to make it harder for Google to operate in the EU. It's probably mainly normal bureaucratic nonsense, encouraged along by some nationalism and probably a bit from european corporations hoping to gain some market share away.

A list of search results omitted due to the “Right to be forgotten”

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