Hi All,

The “right to be forgotten” has been the subject of much discussion and debate (including on this list),[1] particularly following the May European Court of Justice judgment ordering Google to delist some links related to a Spanish citizen.[2] Since then, search engines have been receiving requests to remove hundreds of thousands of URLs from search results. Google recently released more information about its right to be forgotten requests.[3]

The WMF legal team has been watching the “right to be forgotten” issue closely and considering what legal strategies we should take going forward. Today, the WMF published its first transparency report[4]—you can read more in this blog post.[5] WMF held a press briefing announcing our strategy of advocacy and transparency on link censorship. We will oppose what we see as a misguided court decision that has resulted in a crude implementation of the “right to be forgotten.” Lila has also issued a statement,[6] and, Geoff, WMF’s general counsel, and Michelle Paulson, WMF's legal counsel, have published a blog on the subject.[7] As the topic is of interest to this group, we wanted to keep you informed of these recent legal developments.

Thanks,

Stephen

[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-June/000547.html, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-June/000539.html

[2] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0131

[3] https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/file/d/0B8syaai6SSfiT0EwRUFyOENqR3M/edit

[4] http://transparency.wikimedia.org/

[5] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikimedia-foundation-releases-first-transparency-report/

[6] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/european-court-decision-punches-holes-in-free-knowledge/

[7] https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikipedia-pages-censored-in-european-search-results/