Google removes BBC article link

[RainfallWithin]

 

 

Quotes from BBC News source: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28130581

 

This morning the BBC received the following notification from Google:

 

Notice of removal from Google Search: we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/robertpeston/2007/10/merrills_mess.html

 

What it means is that a blog I wrote in 2007 will no longer be findable when searching on Google in Europe.

 

Which means that to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people.

 

So why has Google killed this example of my journalism?

 

Well it has responded to someone exercising his or her new "right to be forgotten", following a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice that Google must delete "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant" data from its results when a member of the public requests it.

 

<Edit: text has been cut to shorten the article>

 

Now in my blog, only one individual is named. He is Stan O'Neal, the former boss of the investment bank Merrill Lynch.

 

My column describes how O'Neal was forced out of Merrill after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.

 

Is the data in it "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant"?

 

Hmmm.

 

Most people would argue that it is highly relevant for the track record, good or bad, of a business leader to remain on the public record - especially someone widely seen as having played an important role in the worst financial crisis in living memory (Merrill went to the brink of collapse the following year, and was rescued by Bank of America).

 

<Edit: text has been cut to shorten the article>

 

So there is an argument that in removing the blog, Google is confirming the fears of many in the industry that the "right to be forgotten" will be abused to curb freedom of expression and to suppress legitimate journalism that is in the public interest.

 

To be fair to Google, it opposed the European court ruling.

 

<Edit: text has been cut to shorten the article>

 

Maybe I am a victim of teething problems. It is only a few days since the ruling has been implemented - and Google tells me that since then it has received a staggering 50,000 requests for articles to be removed from European searches.

 

<Edit: text has been cut to shorten the article>

 

PS Although the BBC has had the notice from Google that my article will not show up in some searches, it doesn't appear to have implemented this yet.

 

 

Personal Thoughts

 

The 'right to be forgotten' law is being blatently abused, as we all knew it would be.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Dude it's been less than a week since it happened. Don't get your knickers in a twist.

 

If this behavior happens multiple times in the next few months,  then maybe we can talk about abuse.

[Jaybird]

Its abused.

[Misanthrope]

Dude it's been less than a week since it happened. Don't get your knickers in a twist.

 

If this behavior happens multiple times in the next few months,  then maybe we can talk about abuse.

Yea it's better to just let it fester for a while and infect public consciousness so later it's impossible to revert  :rolleyes:

[RainfallWithin]

Dude it's been less than a week since it happened. Don't get your knickers in a twist.

 

If this behavior happens multiple times in the next few months,  then maybe we can talk about abuse.

 

This is certainly not the only case of abuse. Perhaps it's the only one that has been reported, however.

[Askew]

The Streisand Effect is coming for people who get stuff removed if the journalists are going to start publicly highlighting that their work has gone away.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Perhaps it's the only one that has been reported, however.

If so, then you certainly can't say that there are others.

 

Reading through Article 17 it looks like they are following the letter of the law. Google, being the controller, has no legitimate interest in the Merrill case, and so the defined rights of the data subject override the rights of the controller.

 

To keep such data public knowledge would require a redefinition of the controller as the general public.

[xrex64]

I feel like the people who got cut from Google Plus switched to this department. 

[Vitalius]

The Streisand Effect is coming for people who get stuff removed if the journalists are going to start publicly highlighting that their work has gone away.

So... what stops the journalist from making a page explaining the situation linked with the same metadata as the page that was stricken from the search results? And that has a link redirecting to said page?

i.e. Google won't show results for my blog at -url- for this reason, so I'm making this page to show up in their search engine so you can still find my blog.

Or they could just make a page that immediately redirects to the other page, unless you are Google Spider or wtv (Google's indexing thing that you sometimes see on this forum listed as viewing users) which tells it that it's a different page.

I'm just saying. If you care, there are ways around it unless it's in the law that this is illegal (I seriously doubt law makers are smart enough for that personally).

[Mooshi]

Nope.

 

When someone in the public eye of high status royally fucks up and quite literally ruins the livelihood of many people, they lose any right they have to privacy as far as I'm concerned.

 

No name drunken harlot posting nudes and wanting those to be hidden, fine (even though nothing ever leaves the Internet), sure. Guys like this? Get lost, the public has a right to be aware of your actions no matter how long ago they were. 

[Entropy]

Yet another tool for greedy rich bastards to abuse and make sure their mistakes are hidden from public view...

 

Weren't there exceptions that prevented this, within the law that allowed it? The hell?

[MonkeyFace]

Does it mean they (Google) can also remove stuff from Google Scholar upon request? 

[bob345]

well, we all knew it would be blatantly abused