Seems like a great precedent. Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people, and they should be held responsible for the consequences.
Are you opposed to spidering the web and presenting the data based on keyword search? Why should Google be held responsible for indexing publicly available webpages?
Do you think Google holds a larger, equal, or smaller responsibility than the content provider who is actually hosting this "harmful" information?
In this case, I don't see anyone at fault and don't think a crime has been committed. The data presented was true and of public record.
I would see a case if Google was somehow treating this man as a special case and only indexing negative things about him, or if google treated his publicly available data differently than any other person's
Who gets to decide what is harmful is indeed generally decided by courts.
I agree that it shouldn't be a special case. Google does discriminate based on how much other information about a person is posted online - someone with a lot of professional info online will look better than someone who doesn't used the internet much and so only these public records appear against their name in search. That is a dangerous form of discrimination.
"Mario Costeja Gonzalez" is a sequence of three words to Google, when you search for that.
It's not like Google found a unique human profile record corresponding to Mr. Gonzalez, and then showed you all of the web pages corresponding to that unique person.
No. It's just words to Google.
Now, "George Clooney" is much more likely to be a person with an actual record someplace inside Google...
But not "Mario Costeja Gonzalez".
I also know that Google is a system operated by humans who are responsible for its effects. If you operate a machine and it harms people, you are responsible. The fact that the harm was done by an automatic process does not change this.
No, you don't.
> Google spiders the web and creates profiles about people
It does not create profiles of people. It creates indexes of words.
When you look at those words, YOU conclude that it's a profile of a person.
CLEARLY, if Google is designed to operate on profiles of people, then it should handle that data carefully, etc.
But CLEARLY if Google is designed to operate on indexes of words, then it's nowhere near as clear what should happen if you happen to search for the name of a person.
You're now demanding that Google LEARN the difference between words and the names of people, and that it behave differently for the two.
So, yes, EvanKelly asked an insightful question:
Are you opposed to the idea of indexes of words in general?
To which you must honestly answer YES. Because you apparently do not believe that it can be considered JUST an index of words. You want this extra layer of understanding.
The telephone company is not responsible for you getting death threats. The post office is not responsible for stopping you from getting a pipe bomb. Making information like this available on the web IS THE PROBLEM.
Indexing words should be innocent.
It's like you want to sue the owners of a building because a bullet ricocheted off of it and killed your dog. Go after the jerk with the gun, okay?
Card catalogs should be illegal.
Let's dig up Melvil Dewey and desecrate his corpse.
The fundamental question is: is it harmful to run a word index algorithm on the internet's data?
You're saying YES.
Don't you realize how backwards and harmful that is?
Google IS a word index algorithm, which ECHOES the information.
If you don't want something to show up in the index, then stop it from being published.
That's why we keep asking:
I assert, "Google IS a word index algorithm on the internet's data. Is it be harmful to run a word index algorithm on the world's data?" To which you say "NO."
Then, somehow, you're still asserting that Google did harm.
Google Search is JUST a word index algorithm. That is the entirety of what it is. So, by your argument, it is NOT harmful to run Google.
That is what it means to assert that google is just an algorithm.
That question COULD NOT BE MORE CLEAR.
It doesn't matter if Larry Page and Sergey Brin form a corporation named Google to do it, or not.
And yet, you say "No, it's not harmful" when we ask you, but then you say, "Yes, it is harmful, if Larry and Sergey make a company called Google to do it."
YOU ARE CONTRADICTING YOURSELF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Note in particular point 2 of the structure: Person 2 disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y.
Google is much more than a word index, so claiming that this is just about word indexes is a misrepresentation.
I'm sorry you are making this error.
And start being "much more," which you assert is harmful.
The ONLY WAY to not have a contradiction is to have a clear line between the two.
Or else you're stuck with "I'll know it when I see it" which is no way to write laws.
So, please educate us, at what point does it become harmful?
These laws aren't written about 'word indexes' they are written about the rights people have to publish information about other people. That is what is at issue.
You assert that A) is harmless, and B) is harmful, but you can't explain the difference between A and B.
YOU'RE the one who said that A is harmless, and B is harmful. NOT ME.
If you conclude from all of this discussion, that it is inherently HARMFUL to operate a word index algorithm on the internet's data, that's fine. I disagree, but that's at least a coherent position.
But for some bizarre reason, you claim that operating a word index algorithm on the internet's data is not harmful... but that what Google does is harmful.
I'm sorry you're incapable of defending your own thought process.
I have repeatedly defended my thought processes. You have simply ignored what I've said, and focused obsessively on whether 'word indexes' are inherently harmful. This has no more relevance than asking whether 'cpu's' are inherently harmful.
Many companies use word indexes in what they do. Not all companies are Google. Therefore google is not just a word index.
a.com/b says "gress is dumb"
A word index of that one site would look like these key / list-of-values pairs:
gress: [a.com/b]
is: [a.com/b]
dumb: [a.com/b]
If I search on a that word index for the word "gress," I might get as a result:
a.com/b "gress is dumb"
So, now you're pissed, because the word index says you're dumb.
I say you can be pissed at the operators of a.com, or the specific author of the web page b. Maybe even take them to court.
YOU'RE the one who said that operating the word index was harmless.
This legal case is EXACTLY ANALOGOUS to what I described, and the only important function of Google Search Engine, as far as this debate goes, is that the index under the word "gress" links to the site a.com/b.
It's not that Google USES a word index. It's that Google IS a word index. And you said that operating a word index was harmless.
And here's how stupid your last paragraph is:
All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, all men are Socrates.
And I've demonstrated that operating a word index would have produced exactly the same behavior that you say is harmful.
That is a contradiction. If you can't resolve that contradiction, it proves you have unclear thinking on the subject.
Whether the operator of the word index is a corporation or not is immaterial to the argument.
Or are you arguing that anyone who operates a word index can do no wrong?
How far down the line does this logic follow? Are the people who created the programming language that Google used to write their search algorithm responsible as well? What about the construction company that dug the ditch for the fiber cables in the ground through which Google's information runs.
I know exactly how a search engine works, so your explanation is irrelevant.
No you don't.
I simply disagree with your views on the responsibility of corporations for what they publish.
The comments about construction companies and programming languages are a straw man. The issue is the information that Google the company provides to searchers about people.
Google the company is providing a service for which they as a company are responsible. The methods they use to provide the service don't change that.
Yes, you are opposed to search engines. You don't think they should echo information (an intrinsic function of a search engine), and you don't think they should prioritize results (an intrinsic function of a search engine).
Show me a search engine which DOESN'T echo information posted online, or prioritize results.
SHOW ME JUST ONE.
Otherwise, admit that you are opposed to the operation of search engines in general.
I am not opposed to the operation of search engines. I simply think they should be held responsible by law for the effects they have on society.