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flubbernugget

Interesting Compromise Between Privacy and Censorship.

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gizmodo.com/googles-response-to-the-right-to-be-forgotten-is-just-1599344132

Tl;dr: A new law/government order/something to do with Big Brother now states that Google has to remove search results linked to information on specific individual, if that individual requests. Google countered with a loophole that ends up exposing the information the individual requests to be "unreferenced" with an even greater extent than it already was.

Which do you think matters more? A lack of censorship or an individual's privacy?

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This is not really about an individual's privacy, rather citizens who are "more equal" get the privilege of not having their skeletons exposed as easily.

Anyway, I prefer a lack of censorship. Your personal information is mainly limited to what you put on the internet. Stupid people say shit under their real identities or put their personal information on the net quite willingly, or until they do something stupid and they get backlash, that is. This is really only useful if a jaded acquaintance or ex doxes you in spite. But we already have slander laws.

And, of course, this comes from the EU... As always they have no idea how the net works and you can't magically remove your information just by eliminating search results.

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I'm surprised they don't just go to ISPs. The movie and music industries do when it comes to torrenting.

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Privacy is ideal, but not mandatory. I mean, it's really nothing but the honor's system. There can be no real expectation of privacy because there are so many ways for private information to become public. Any law trying to uphold privacy is basically, "Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top please don't don't expose my private info." Government censorship is far more dangerous, and we can actually do something about that, so yeah, I'm gonna have to go with censorship being the bigger deal in this case, just because it's far easier to prevent censorship than it is to ensure privacy.

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flubbernugget said:

Google countered with a loophole that ends up exposing the information the individual requests to be "unreferenced" with an even greater extent than it already was.

When I search for a person's name, all I get on the footer is this message: "Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe. Learn more" with Learn more going to some general help page.

Anyway this is only part of the way of privacy protection, since there are other search engines available, even though they suck.

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2 days ago I googled a person I'd met at Defqon1. Using "firstname citytheyrefrom defqon" brought up their facebook profile.

So much for that noise.

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Aliotroph? said:

Censorship is always wrong. Nobody's privacy is worth crippling a search engine.

It's not censorship. It's removing a convenience feature making access to some info easier, not removing the information itself. I have the right to request removal of any references to my data a company might be holding, I see no reason why Google should be exempt from that law.

I'll just quote from the discussion under the article:

"The requirement that Google take down links just because somebody doesn't want them to show up when their name is Googled is just lame censorship."

It's not. It's called the right to privacy. Which is obviously not so well respected in the US. The point is: you don't have to agree with it, but you've to respect it. Ie. the fact that citizens of the EU want to live their lives that way, with proper privacy controls in place and with the ability to tell any company to remove any information they might have about them.

Arguing against this is similar to telling that the US is stupid because it allows anyone to own a firearm, and cheering on someone trying to break or circumvent the point of EU laws is similar to be cheering on terrorist to blow up a few more skycrapers in the US, just by abusing said law.

" The search giant has taken a smart (and pretty funny) step"

Well, it's not so smart, and it's a breach of law. Because Google is definitely breaching the EU data protection directive when it's sending any information to any third party that can be used to uniquely identify a person - which obviously is the case here.

That said I hope the EU will get after Google and fine them for a massive amount for practically trying to sabotage the ruling the EC has made every possible way.

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I don't even care that much about privacy in this context and am actually annoyed at how easy it is for criminals to censor everything about them within a few years in my country; but this is typical American imperialism at work, forcing their subjective values on everyone else through brute power, then claiming moral superiority through sheer numbers.

Lesser of two evils? IDK, but it's pretty ugly on either side.

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Technician said:

This is not really about an individual's privacy, rather citizens who are "more equal" get the privilege of not having their skeletons exposed as easily.


This statement seems quite contradictory. To you, what exactly is privacy then?

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geo said:

I'm surprised they don't just go to ISPs. The movie and music industries do when it comes to torrenting.

The compliance costs would probably drive most small-to-medium sized ISPs out of business or out of the EU. It's more convenient to tell search engine businesses like Google not to link to specific content, though if the information is factually correct, in the public interest and not the result of corporate/government data mining and profiling, I don't see how "unreferencing" could be considered to be anything other than censorship.

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I guess all you anti-censorship people should study the case that caused all of this before complaining.

What would you do if any search on your name produced some old, long obsolete but potentially very harmful data?

Of course the affected guy sued Google - and won!

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The only effective way to protect your privacy anymore is to create a situation of personal "plausible deniability", by "poisoning" or "googlebombing" search results yourself, by filling the net with contraddictory or irrelevant information about yourself, to the point that a self-appointed detective will have a hard time proving which of the gathered "intel" on you is really true and which is bull, and even more hard to use any of them as facts.

Are you a computer hacker? Are you a greek-american helicopter pilot? Are you a bouncer from brooklyn? Did you get married 6 times in Las Vegas? Are you a mysterious martial artist? Who knows!

After all, both the true facts and the bull will have all come from the "Net"! Proving any and all of them wrong or true will require actual true detective work, and anyone using just Web sources as their "research" will not be very believable.

Where does the "plausible deniability" come from? Assuming that someone is trying to harm you and uses one particular profile of you to "prove" some point, you can always claim that this is someone else with your same name (not at all unusual). Unless you have to report to an actual authority which would cross-check other facts like actual birthdate, parents' names, birthplace, just a name and a surname are pretty flimsy leads and can be easily "poisoned" by the individual itself.

Create multiple profiles of yourself, each telling a different story and age. Which one is the real one? Who knows! This will be enough to protect you from non-state, self-appointed amateur "net detectives", as long as a full version of your "dox" isn't traceable.

NOTE: sadly, this has sometimes backfired, when a hated person happens to have your same name, and self-appointed "vigilantes" decide to pay YOU a visit, by managing to obtain more detailed "dox" on the wrong person. Still, it proves that "searching" for people just based on their name is not really guaranteed to be accurate, which, if you're trying to confuse things, might be just what you want.

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Aliotroph? said:
Censorship is always wrong.

Trade secrecy is basically the same as censorship. A group of people that by some laws have privileges over an enterprise practice a form of censorship on other participants of the industry and their own workers or the civilians of the regions they do business in. The most eager supporters of "censorship (by governments) is absolutely wrong" policies are the defenders or liberal economics and private sector lobbies who want to undermine public governance to have more control on information, as the ability to withhold information is one of the means of having leverage over it.

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Somehow I don't picture Doomworld as a secret hangout for fat cats burning dollar bills with their cigars while they plan the next war to make money. But I guess anyone who speaks against censorship here is manipulated by those in power, because we're all stupid sheeple right?

Jeez. Even when we seem to be on the same side, you're so high up on your horse it's impossible to agree with you. Trust the one guy always speaking up against the establishment to act like everyone else isn't even worthy to lick his boots.

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Let's go whole hog with this "censorship is bad" thing and abrogate all intellectual property laws.

After all, when you stop someone from continuing to counterfeit something, you're censoring him, right?

And if people are denied the right to have privacy, then the most important and fundamental intellectual property in the world -- the one you have over your own life -- is already negated.

So, if Joe McAveragePerson's intellectual property rights are ignored, there is no justification, in a democracy, for Plutoligarchy Inc. to have any such rights. Trademarks, copyrights, patents, and all other such things need to instantly stop having any legal value.

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The requirement that Google take down links for the right to be forgotten is just lame censorship. Overtly! It's the removal of inconvenient facts from published public view because somebody wants the facts to disappear. It's a bit like the producers of Friday Night Lights calling on the Ministry of Truth to have Season 2 erased from the record because it's inferior to the rest of the series.

This is so trivializing. I'm sure there could be abuses by people trying to avoid legit public criticism, but treating people's personal exposures to the internet (which can often not be countered by other legal rights or protections) as if it were nothing more than an entertainment show just says something about immaturity or idiocy of the person writing the Gizmodo column (whose name I shall not double-check because everyone has the right to be forgotten, voluntarily or not).

Phml said:
But I guess anyone who speaks against censorship here is manipulated by those in power, because we're all stupid sheeple right?

Whatever makes you think that stems from what I said, must come from your creativity, it's not my genius. That is, where did I criticize anyone defending freedom of expression? No, just the fundamentalist idea of basing arguments on "freedom must be worshiped above all".

Even when we seem to be on the same side, you're so high up on your horse it's impossible to agree with you.

Perhaps in your mind, the things I say can only be said to look good unless they're said in the face of a fat cat or to The Man in a closed room. Your suggestion that it is only proper in the ears of the economic elite is akin to labor culture where all workers individually sort their issues out in the boss's office, and not collectively after public interaction. It would just be a kind of silver shield of paladinhood to rub on others' faces and sink them in the mud. Empathy or even correcting one's wrongs don't even cross your mind.

The accusation of "high horsing" here can arguably be reduced to that I'm committing the hubris of saying things you think should not be said. Ideas and relations to facts that peeve you and you'd rather escape from or stamp out. Censorship is also an aspect of points of view from fear, ignorance, and also sheer interest. Why reduce things to sheepleness? Mykie-boy is not going by proper rules that leave certain Western or social issues unsaid so we can all feel more cozy about our existence and relations to society. It's like being forced to watch those films that have some underlying social narrative with political concerns or that unveil some inner monster from the id! Let's label him something sticky so maybe he shuts up one day, or at least we get a bandwagon going.

Trust the one guy always speaking up against the establishment to act like everyone else isn't even worthy to lick his boots.

Sorry if that's how you feel, but it's not the primary intent. I recently polished my boots anyway, albeit in a rather amateurish way, so it's not really necessary. Perhaps it happens to you because often I respond to insults or attacks with an argument as if to a human being rather than retaliating like a dog. If I insulted you back, we could both comfortably label each other and build a wall between us.

Holering said:
If someone wants to steal that by spying on me, they can drink my dick.

Aha, I presume your defense against an online smear campaign using some of your private data would be posting a picture of you lowering you pants for the attackers, no?

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This will only be abused by rich business owners who have the resources to dig up dirt on their employees and customers despite what appears on Google. Letting the web preserve everything is the only chance people without their own spies have of countering it.

Oh, and I don't support trade-secret laws in at all. I think industrial espionage can only be a good thing in the long term, as it spreads knowledge around.

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Slightly related: What do you guys think should be done about lives tainted by dishonest journalism? I can't think of a viable solution.

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Mostly it is about us how we react to it, us readers and viewers. Once the reputation has taken hit, you can't easily change what is done. See the case of Adam Orth. Different... Yet applicable.

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Clonehunter said:

What if Google just cut off from the EU?

They'd be a massive drop in revenue, blood on the boardroom carpet, the shares would tank and Google's competitors would soon fill the void in Europe. Safest option is to play the role of good corporate citizen in order to keep their shareholders happy.

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flubbernugget said:

Slightly related: What do you guys think should be done about lives tainted by dishonest journalism? I can't think of a viable solution.


Other than preemptively "tainting" any on-line information available about yourself with ambiguity (see my proposal above) in order to render any purely on-line research about yourself unreliable and launching your own manipulation counter-campaigns, there's little you can do.

Why do you think a lot of companies or individuals surrounded by controversy flood the net/googlebomb with fake articles and reviews about themselves/their products? They do that in order to misdirect and prevent people from looking at the real bad reviews.

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Maes said:

Other than preemptively "tainting" any on-line information available about yourself with ambiguity (see my proposal above) in order to render any purely on-line research about yourself unreliable and launching your own manipulation counter-campaigns, there's little you can do.

Except doing that as a person and not a commercial entity or whatever makes you seem even more suspicious and is entirely counterproductive.

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myk said:
Aha, I presume your defense against an online smear campaign using some of your private data would be posting a picture of you lowering you pants for the attackers, no? [/B]


I'm not sure what you mean by that (better yet this thread). I mean, yeah, if I want to watch a movie or something and it gets bloody censored, then that is going to piss me off.

But if I had an ex that posted pictures of me on the internet for the world to see, I'd be even more pissed and make everyone against my privacy drink my dick physically. I mean, it's not like I would agree going against her privacy.

Unless I have a cell mate that does try to peek into my physical privacy, I wouldn't show my genitals to anyone. I aint gay.

If someone stole my private data (credentials, credit cards, family, etc.), that would make me pshyco. I'd have to become a digital representation of myself and be an improved version of Neo in the Matrix, going against agents.

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Belial said:

Except doing that as a person and not a commercial entity or whatever makes you seem even more suspicious and is entirely counterproductive.


Then, assuming the facade of a "commercial entity or whatever" should also be part of the cover-up, as it has inherently greater dissuasive power ;-)

If you slander a person, it's just hurt feelings. If you slander a "profitable business" or organization however, you will the very least get a nice cease & desist letter or even get sued for causing "loss of revenue", and all but the dumbest (or very well funded/backed up) "assault journalists" know that. It does (doesn't?) help that in most Western legal systems, damages to one's finances are treated harsher than damages to one's "honour".

E.g. try slandering Leonardio DiCaprio (TM) or anyone else with a trademarked name: oh boy oh boy, you better lube up your (figurative) legal entity of an asshole, for it's gonna get (not so figuratively) reamed ;-)

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Maes said:

E.g. try slandering Leonardio DiCaprio (TM) or anyone else with a trademarked name: oh boy oh boy, you better lube up your (figurative) legal entity of an asshole, for it's gonna get (not so figuratively) reamed ;-)


Perhaps the trick is to learn how to con the 4chan guys into doing it for you.

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Maes said:
Other than preemptively "tainting" any on-line information available about yourself with ambiguity (see my proposal above) in order to render any purely on-line research about yourself unreliable and launching your own manipulation counter-campaigns, there's little you can do.

That assumes every attack on the internet consists of a huge bandwagon going against the victim and that you can't work on different levels. The responsibilities added to Google and other search engines will simply add up to other legal actions, such as on sites or against specific uploaders of files that breach privacy or smear people's image. Assuming some law must give a definite and ultimate solution to a problem is a straw man. They are simply tools that help ensure some guarantees. You can't say it doesn't work because it's not perfect.

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