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I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does.

If this man had problems with his debts being online, he should have contacted/sued the sites which displayed this data. This is like suing TV Guide because there's a show on tv that is offensive to you.

> I think placing the onus on google for this is the wrong precedent and I think it speaks to the public and the court's misunderstanding of what a search engine does.

I also think it's wrong that they didn't sanction the original publisher, which makes far more sense as a solution.

However, Google should be subject to the laws of Data Protection - a search engine is, in some sense, a data repository that may handle personal data. It is unlike TV Guide in this respect.

Do you think search engines should be proactively or reactively responsible for not displaying personal information?

I mean, this stuff is literally in news articles about the guy, there's really no way to proactively not index articles which "affect someone's honor or dignity".

I also think it's wrong that they didn't sanction the original publisher, which makes far more sense as a solution.

The original publisher is fine in this case because the information is perfectly correct. Which is what makes this case particularly asinine.

Absolutely not so. That's not how free speech works in the EU, and that's not what the court ruling says. EU citizens have a general right to information privacy.

The original publisher was "...legally justified as [the publication] took place upon order of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and was intended to give maximum publicity to the auction..."

My understanding: La Vanguardia (exclusively) gained the legal right to process private information for (only) this specific reason - but Google processed the private information without that legal right.

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=152...

This is a good thing.

Censorship is never a good thing. Just because you don't like information being made public, doesn't mean that you should be able to get the government to force other people to hide that information (assuming the information itself isn't illegal).

If I steal money from your house, and I'm arrested and sent to jail, should I be allowed to have Google remove any information related to that from search results?

You have to weigh the public interest versus peace of mind for the individual.

Exactly, and in this case you've put the desire of any given individual over the needs of the public interest.

This really is not the same as censorship, equating it does not make an argument.

Your example uses a robbery - a crime which is very much in everyone's interest to be public. It's useful to know where the crime was committed and what kind of crime it was.

My personal life does not concern you. You gain nothing and lose nothing by losing access to it for you should never have had access to begin with. The negative consequences of it being public fall on me, not on you. You have an asymmetric imbalance of power and social obligation with this information.

If you really do not care about your information being public, post something damaging. Someone would probably publicly mirror it to avoid it being removed. If you don't want to post, why not?

Social conduct is a real thing.

Forcing someone else to hide information is an interesting part of this dilemma. That someone else should have no interest in the data either - it does not cost them to remove it.

If there is a wall owned by a landlord and someone graffitis on that wall with some hurtful truth about someone. The graffiti can be considered unnecessary and should never have occurred to begin with. The landlord would have no qualm with removing it.

This really is not the same as censorship, equating it does not make an argument.

Explain how this is not censorship. The government in this case is forcing Google to remove (correct and public) information from their search engine because "they say so."

That someone else should have no interest in the data either - it does not cost them to remove it.

Of all places, it's strange to see someone on HN refer to development resources referred to as "no cost". How do you expect Google to handle these personally-filtered search results without spending money building the framework necessary to handle this?

The person who wants the information is the one causing the removal of the content - not the government. It is not about the government trying to suppress information. The government (or court system) is acting on behalf of the individual.

Like anything involving people, it is merely a cost of society that makes us better off if we accept it as the cost of doing business. There are many costs like this in society. For example; your neighbours are outrageously noisy and unwieldy and are making it difficult for you to sleep. You have tried asking them to keep the noise down. Our society has has a slow and expensive process to come to some sort of resolution. Rather unnecessary since your local government and police have better things to do. It's not really their fault, you just happen to live in their catchment area.

Rather than just accept that people can do what they want or without regard to others, a pleasant society provides solutions to social issues like this. Without it, life would be less smooth.

Google has many engineers and big datacentres, I am sure they will manage.

Google is not a public institution.

This is the Spanish government ordering Google to censor information.

That is the very definition of censorship.

Defamation is a well established cause for legally compelling people to change the way they represent others.

Except in this case there was no defamation. The original news source is allowed to stay just as it is, Google (or anyone else) just isn't allowed to link to it.

You go after the primary source of the information.

Not the mechanically computed index of primary sources.

What justifies giving the searchers an advantage that the victims don't have?

The victims are blaming the wrong person.

The victims should blame the person who posted the information on the internet.

DUH.

Google is duplicating the information just as the other sites have done. The difference is that it has far more reach.

So, Duck Duck Go could legally index and show the same information?

Should the law refer to Google by name? Or maybe by Market share? Number of searches per year?

How EXACTLY should the law define "reach"?

The law does apply to everyone, DDG included. Google just happens to be the largest offender.

If something should be taken down, it should be taken down at the source.

In this case, the newspaper was allowed to leave the article online, but Google was forced to stop linking to the article.

To answer your question, yes I should have the right to post a statement that you don't like. I should be able to express myself, make an observation, re-iterate a fact, without censure.

What if your statement is false?

> common courtesy

Common courtesy should not be encoded into law.

If you type the current year into your calculator, and then hit subtract, and then you type the year I was born in to your calculator, it shows you how old I am.

But that's protected information! You could use that to discriminate against me! Texas Instruments, must modify their SUBTRACTION ALGORITHM to not show how old I am!!!

Google is just a SEARCH ALGORITHM.

I am not sure what to make of this argument.

A number on a calculator is data, not information.

Do you want a perfect search algorithm that knows no bounds? Would you be okay with it finding a webcam stream into your home? Or phone or your GPS? Would you be okay with making searching everything you have ever visited online or said to someone? Would you be okay with this search algorithm to allow finding your political allegiances?

No? There has to be some limit then. That comes from people and enshrined by the actions of people, constituting common courtesy.

A search algorithm can only search what it is allowed to search.

If you don't want a search engine to find a webcam stream of your home, then don't allow a search algorithm to index it.

Don't put it online in the first place, or if you do restrict access to people with a log-in.

> Would you be okay with making searching everything you have ever visited online or said to someone?

If I want to allow a search engine to access that information, then yes. GMail does search everything I have GMail'ed to or from people. That's incredibly useful. Chrome History Search does let me search sites I have visited.

> Would you be okay with this search algorithm to allow finding your political allegiances?

If I post, "I, Viking Coder, am a tea party Conservative," then yes. (I'm not, by the way.)

> No?

I didn't answer "no" to any of your questions.

> There has to be some limit then.

Yes, people need to limit what information they, themselves, SHARE.

And if someone else shares something ABOUT YOU with everyone else on the internet, then you should be mad at them.

The fact that the search engine is a magnifying glass / microscope / index tool that allows you to search the data on the internet doesn't give me any right to be mad at that tool.

The article and discussion is not about what you yourself put online, it is what others put online about you which is then indexed. The cost of removing from an index is insignificant compared to the personal cost to the person.

Google is just a search algorithm in the same way that a gun is just a convenient way to move pieces of lead around.

You don't blame a gun for someone getting shot. You shouldn't blame Google for indexing information and displaying it when queried.

No - you don't blame the gun. You blame the operator. That is exactly what is happening in this case.

A SITE POSTS INFORMATION.

...Google indexes it...

Go after the site that posted the information!!!

Posting the information on a web server is the offensive and harmful act.

Mechanically creating an index of information on web servers is not.

So you were wrong about the gun analogy and are ignoring the point that the operators are responsible for what Google does.

The harmful information was shot out of one website, and bounced off of the Google index.

Why are you so completely incapable of blaming the person who actually pulled the trigger? The original source of the harmful information?

I said nothing about not blaming the original sites. Only that Google is responsible for the effects of their service.

Only that Google is responsible for the effects of their service.

To a limit though, right? I mean, you wouldn't expect Google to be sued because someone bombed a location they got directions to via Google Maps. So, why in this case are they any more responsible?

Certainly there are limits. That's why it is an issue for courts and legislatures to decide what they should be. My argument is simply that it's entirely appropriate for courts to decide based on the social harms and that 'it's just an algorithm' is utterly irrelevant.

So google shouldn't index public newspapers?

How does that follow from 'it's up to the courts to decide what is harmful'?

Yes, if you had an STD 16 years ago and have dealt with it, it would seem reasonable to have that taken down, or moved off the front page.

It may even be reasonable to have medical records taken down carte blanche.