Logan,
Don't know if you have come across the following story on the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28130581
Looks like the right to be forgotten might be being abused already. What looks like a legit piece of journalism of public interest has been removed (or will be removed) from Google search results.
If this pans out it seems the slippery slope has started. It also seems that neither Google or the BBC (at this point in time) want to spend resources challenging the request which to me is more worrying then the request itself (people are always going to try and abuse the system, especially weak ones that aren't very robust).
What do you make of it?
I'm definitely worried about this, and I'm surprised Logan and Wendill never showed as much care as they do with the Net Neutrality.
Thats easy - It doesnt directly affect America or Americans - so why would they care? Its unfortunately and fairly standard and very american attitude
It is more likely that they don't have the same kind of grip on EU policy making as they do in the US nor time to follow the daily developments of that area. But they have talked about EU policy developments in some Tek episodes.
I'm more interested in what it means to you when they either do or do not care about EU policy making besides yourself?
Well, the "abuse" is nothing but a necessary consequence of the obvious abusive system that Google has created.
There are rules when it comes to how much a society has to punish a perpetrator, and there is a justice system that deals with the procedural aspects of everything, because that's the best guarantee that nobody does to the innocent person what should be done to the guilty.
Do not forget that in the present state of politics, everybody is guilty or can be made guilty with ease. The NSA puts surveillance on everyone that searches for "botnet", "Tor", "Tails", etc... on Google. Do you really think that you're safe when you let Google spy on you? Do you think it's something that is worth risking? Well, if you think Google should be allowed to even gather data that is not voluntarily submitted by businesses and persons that can show a legitimate interest in submitting that data and own all the rights to that data and have a legal right to publish that data in every aspect.... then why don't you propose that the different Bill of Rights/HUman Rights Manifest/etc... should just do away with the "Right to Privacy" and should instead adopt Google's "Right to know everything".... see how much better that will make humanity...
The real solution is very simple: search bots and crawlers should just be outlawed completely world-wide. It's an abusive practice, and individuals are put in jail for much less offensive and human rights violating internet hacks than that. Doesn't anyone see that Google's entire raison d'être is completely wrong and that they are distorting values that have been fought for by many people for over 2000 years.
Once you waive a fundamental right, you're not going to get it back! It's a black and white situation. I do hope the petition in the EU gets accepted to break up Google as a company because of competition law. It would at least shed some vital light on Google's true business model and the lawfulness of the actual transactions that feed it. I don't think that there is a single company in the world right now that is as evil and dangerous to human rights as Google, and that's also counting oil companies, major arms manufacturers and other pillars of international terrorism and political destabilization, etc...
I think that it's completely normal that the EU, China, Russia, Brazil, and dozens of other countries (Turkey, Cuba, Israel, Egypt, etc etc etc) are trying to defend their hard earned democratic progress against the Google Gangrene.