[Advocacy Advisors] Transparency and "right to be forgotten" notices from search engines

Wed Aug 6 11:01:56 UTC 2014

Hi Stephen,

thank you for sharing this! I do like the position so far and do agree that
this, well, let's call it half-baked court decision causes a lot of
problems without actually solving the issue at hand (data protection, right
to privacy) and I therefore welcome the WMF being active here.

Just one thing that is important to me: Since the General Data Protection
Directive is currently in the making in the EU, Google is trying to use
this terrible court decision as a lobbying tool to remove other unwelcome
passages in the legislation. We must be careful not become a pawn in
between Google's interests and the data protection advocates.

Both freedom of knowledge and right to privacy are legitimate demands. I
believe we should stand up against the court decision and its
implementation, not necessary the principle, since even we at Wikipedia do
permanently delete some information we consider too personal. The
incomprehensible thing here  is that the de-indexed data is perfectly legal
and remains published, but has to be legally de-indexed.

Just to clarify, I don't think this has happened, I simply want to warn of
such a risk. I think WMF Legal is doing a great job on this so far.

Cheers,
Dimi

2014-08-06 12:15 GMT+02:00 Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org>:

> 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/
>
> --
> Stephen LaPorte
> Legal Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> *NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and
> ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for,
> community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.
> For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
>
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>
>
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