Is a right in itself and maybe you can derive a "right to search" from it, but in doing so you would only prove my point that a "right to search" by itself is nowhere in the law books.

Nice hyperbole, but entirely beside the point. I already explained in my original posting what the legal situation actually is, I don't see why I should repeat it.

Of course, you can refute me easily. Find the correct EU law that contains the phrase "right to search" and post a link. I will apologize if you do.

He's an economist. That's his job.

Actually, the data was gathered to see if the professor's view that his phone had slowed down was also shared by other iPhone users; they found an interesting correlation between search spikes and new iPhone models but were careful to say that doesn't prove anything other than people perceive a slowdown when a new phone comes out. He points out some valid reasons why the Samsung / Apple data differs, primarily that Apple releases a new version of IOS with the new iPhone and thus the new iOS may not be optimized for older hardware while many Android users remain on an older version. In addition, since the Andriod device makers don't control Android they may find it cheaper not to spend a lot of time on the OS and rather invest in hardware improvements as the differentiator.

Not really, the concept had been around a while, and pilots had been using them long before the first pair of Bose QCs hit the market. Bose, while he did a lot of research into ANR, popularized them for use outside of the cockpit. IMHO Bose are way overpriced, you can get a set of Audio Technica, or a if you prefer an open ear design, Sennheisers that cancel noise quite well for half the price of the Bose . A Sennheiser BT for about the same price but with BT. Al of them also work as regular headphones when the battery dies, unlike the Bose QCs.

You are jumping to conclusion there.

Europe would like its laws to be honoured by corporations doing business in the EU. If Google was ordered to remove X, but it is still present if I simply go to google.com instead of google.co.uk, then Google has not complied with the removal order.

It is absolutely technically possible to filter based on source IP address country. They can do it for advertisement, so there's absolutely no excuse for not doing it for legal compliance.

It is mostly not about stuff people put out there themselves. There are people out there who can't get a job because they were wrongfully accused of molesting a child 10 years ago, and the searches turn up the accusations, but not the acquittal (mostly because press rarely writes about it).

While you are right on this, I doubt it has much to do with this law. This law has been in the works since 1995 and was passed in 2012 if I recall correctly (many EU laws go into effect delayed, or require national laws to be passed to implement them). It was on the table long before anyone knew the name Snowden, and if at all then the NSA scandal only affected some final touches.

Legally speaking, they not only don't appear, they are not. The legal definition of censorship (at least here in Germany, YMMV) means pre-publication, government-agency control. Having a court (as opposed to a government agency) found something illegal and removing it has never been considered censorship in the legal sense.

Actually, the reason they don't is that if the source is outside the EU, it is a very lengthy and uncertain process. Now while you hail Internet anarchy, consider what options the lawmakers have:

1. They could sit on their thumbs doing nothing. While this option pleases the anarchist in us, you cannot expect a lawmaker to ignore lawbreakers - in fact, in most other instances of such an event, we would complain very loudly that they're lazy, corrupt bastards.
2. They can filter at the ISP level - welcome Internet censorship infrastructure. I'm pretty sure you don't want this alternative.
3. They understand that for 90% of the users, Google et al is The Internet, and if it can't be found in a search, it doesn't exist.

For all the whining here, the option they've taken is actually the least intrusive.

There is no such right, except in your imagination. There is a right (at least in my country, probably similar ones in the EU as a whole) to get information from publicly available sources. So the government cannot stop you from searching at all. But it can intervene in the information available if that information breaks laws. For example, copyrighted content, state secrets, but also information a court has found to be libel or slander.

And quite frankly speaking, for the cases this law is intended for (let's not focus only on the abuses, as most idiot journalists do because it makes for better headlines), the right of an individual to not have their life ruined by, say, completely made-up allegations of child abuse and rape quite clearly trumps your right of finding false and misleading information.

Well, yes, I don't think there are any shortage of good fighters from areas of little material wealth either. :)

Many of the effected people are not government employees, they are hourly contractors doing clerical and office work. They either have to take vacation or go without pay, and not getting paid for a week when you are making maybe $15/hour is not pleasant. Some can work from home but since the outage was unexpected they may not have their work laptop at home. How do I know this? I have a friend who works there.

You forgot the most important aspect of soccer:

It can be played by anyone, anywhere, without any equipment save something round-ish to kick.

Aren't you thinking of encryption?

I'm sorry, but that can't be right. If we relied on probability, even in an infinite universe we'd never see the likes of Mariah Carey's "Glitter".