I don't think they have much of a chance - a politician can't argue that his former record is irrelevant to his current re-election campaign -- similarly a doctor asking for bad reviews to be removed; unless maybe they are very old bad reviews and new reviews are better.

I would think these cases are on par with some stupid court cases, we've seen elsewhere - like McDonalds being forced to not make their coffee quite as hot as it used to, because someone might scald themselves. There are always people that will try and immediately get an advantage out of a situation. Whether they'll get through with it is a wholly different matter - but I think just from the headlines, that these people will have a tough time arguing that this is a "irrelevant" old news.

I think you can answer that question yourself:

What if mychildp*rn.com moved from the US to a country where child-p*rn wouldn't be illegal. Do you think the US would accept that site still serving "the US market"?

Obivously, this example is weaker, but I think without a presence in Europe, it would be (more) difficult to do business there - potentially giving rise to any competitor who WOULD be willing to go through with this and would therefore be in a better position to serve the markets here (don't think about the search itself, think about the advertising that makes their income!).

Somehow, showing one person that wasn't much harmed by it isn't really much in terms of proving the point -

- Bill Gates rise long predated the kind of easy information retrieval, we have now.

- X people in the US owning guns doesn't detract from the fact, that the US with it's liberal gun laws has the highest relative number of gun related deaths. My guess is, saying my neighbour owns a gun and I'm still alive isn't much consolation to those who have lost loved ones at the Columbine shooting or any other shooting that is.

- "You live with what you've done" - true, no discussion there - but seeing similarly bogus discussions levelled at some politicians for stuff they've said 20 years ago - opinions they have changed _loooooong_ ago - it still makes them targets now; i.e. any good political argument they might bring on a case NOW gets diminished by them having been wrong on an unrelated issue way back when.

- "Allowing people to erase their past" - stupid argument from your side - the EU case says nothing that a "repeat offender" gets their records cleared -- and the guy wouldn't have won the right to have that old story removed from a public search engine's index, if he still had issues about finances.

- "People have a right to evaluate who they are hiring as a camp counselor for girl guides summer camp" - sure, but that is about criminal records, which noone is asking to remove.

- "who they rent an apartment to" - this is probably the crux of it; sure, as a landlord I'd like to know, if a potential tenant can pay his rent. But - should I be allowed to turn down a tenant who has had no financial problems the last 10 years based on him having had them 15 years ago (and repaid everything long ago) - you can bet that the repossession will still show up in the search index, but once you repay a debt, that isn't published - your record may just get removed: And so you're still left with a marker for something that was loooooooooooong ago and completely irrelevant for the current time.

What you want to do is to be allowed to discriminate based on outdated information; which is a perfectly good reason, why someone else might want to have outdated information removed from _search indices_. Not full removal of data - so, if you know specific places where to look, you'll still get the information - and you know the _context_ in which you're getting them, but not in a public search index of everything, where most people don't care about the context and will just see "Repossession? That's bad! I won't do business with him!".

To not allow that would also mean it would be irrelevant to try for social rehabilitation of people in prison - even if you complete your jail term, everyone should be able to discriminate against you for the rest of your life - simply because everyone will just see "gone to prison" (20 years ago) in a public search index of newspaper articles, but not see "released from prison" (19 years ago) as that usually doesn't get published - and the police record that DOES have that kind of information is not easily searchable: with good reason, because that information needs to be seen in context. And if you're still worried - having the criminal record will still ensure that that person shouldn't become a girl scout counselor.

I think it's not so much about me just being able to go to google and say, remove all my results from searches.
I think it IS more about me being able to remove specific things from the search results, if they are "about me". This is probably where it gets difficult - how would I go about and prove that some thing I would like to remove from the search is genuinely about ME, not about someone else who shares my name (and might not mind).

Also, note, it's only to remove it from the search - obviously, google can't remove the target page linked, and that's not what the guy had asked for, either. What was asked, was that this information should not simply be turned up when googling his name, as this issue in the past still threatens his livelyhood today, if people don't want to do business with him _NOW_ based on him having struggled financially _years ago_. Note: The page was accurate (and still IS accurate) in the sense that his house WAS being repossessed back then. But that does not make the page an "accurate" representation of his financial situation _now_. If he now has trouble finding jobs (I believe a news interview said he is a freelance worker), because people see an OLD article mentioning his financial issues, then that old information bubbling up will cause him actual financial / reputational harm now and in the future.

The whole thing is _very_ difficult, and we would do better to try and see how it could best be implemented, it won't be easy. But we WILL need to see that there are people genuinely suffering from the consequences if we don't. Do you want to get bitten sometime in the future by some mishap / stupidity / risk you took earlier in your life - long in your past - simply because it still turns up under a search for your name? (This needn't even be something illegal, or financial issue - it could simply be some embarrassing stunt you pulled as a drunk teenager; but google won't let you forget -- do you want your personal career in the future never to take off, because of something stupid you said years or even decades before?)

A lot of information about you as a person may be relevant, if it is CURRENT - it's useless, if not even destructive, if outdated, but still turns up.

Here's a simple thing - 14 years ago, I held a position labelled "architecture support" (I was a developer, but also supporting the company's IT architects trying to come up with good ways of building a new system, all the while maintaining connectivity to the legacy systems): That was 14 years ago - the role is still relevant for what I do today - but you won't believe how many idiots still send inquiries, on whether I might be available for general IT help-desk or support work, after finding my CV "using a sophisticated, targetted search". Should I start lying on my CV, just to get around it? (particularly bad, since a written reference from the post also clearly labels the position as "architecture support")?

Note - this case is harmless - it's purely annoying - it's nothing like the other guy's repossession issue turning up in google, if potential future bosses do a quick "screening" - who will then turn him down, after his "sophisticated screening process" turned up a "red flag" (financial issues) without being able to discern whether they have ANY current relevance.

Strange - people fishing should be "free" to fish unmonitored... ...people hunting should be "free" to hunt unmonitored... ...people on the Internet should be "free" to be monitored at will...

To me that sounds like future terrorist plots could best be discussed on a hunting trip, because you have the gun lobby ensuring that you'll be undisturbed...

'Officials say data is not kept to determine if the cameras are driving down crime.'

It seems to me, that if there _WERE_ concrete evidence of crime being reduced, they _WOULD_ keep data.

If the cities would collect data, that does NOT show a drop in crime, then city officials might be criticized for the whole operation... ...without the data - it's hard to nail them down on it...

I'm not sure I agree with your first statement there - "market driven life" - the lack of promotion for good musicians is not necessarily market driven, but marketing driven - and not purely marketing, but also the risk-averseness of the businesses behind it.

New "edgy" movies don't really happen any more, because noone is willing to put a lot of risk into something _new_ and untested, whereas honing the craft and doing another big blockbuster type movie that only mildly diverges from previous successes makes it easier to convince backers.

(No, you don't need to point to a couple of counter examples that show that people do dare new things - just look at the mainstream and where the big money is.)

In a sense it was the same with the housing boom - once it started, it became easier and easier to sell people into the idea - and "just look at the market - it just keeps rising and rising - you can't lose!".

I agree with you, that the value of music cant be measured in dollars or pounds - as far as the consumer goes. For the producer, if something can't be measured in dollars or pounds - that just sounds like taking a safe bet that the investment is going to be a write-off.

If I were to offer you to produce an album by some outside artist - no matter whether _you_ personally liked that artist - before you put significant amounts of money towards producing their idea on a big scale, would you do it if you didn't see a "measurable" result coming out of it?

We see this kind of thing partially happening in crowd-funding efforts - and there it works, because noone really bets the farm on the endeavour in question. I've recently signed up on two kickstarter campaigns that _I_ think are a good idea and I want the product that comes out of it - but in either case, I'm not sure whether I'd invest my livelihood into those projects, as they may just be too niche, and my own funds are too limited that I could afford just to go on a hunch and ignore the chance of a loss. Big business might have that kind of financial means - but there it is about whether the CEO feels safe enough in his post that (s)he can engage in a big risk - so, will the CEO stake his/her own future on a hunch, or play it safe?

Interesting take - I envy future generations, which will have amazing resources like, say, debts the level we can't even dream of yet.

You think they might be able to just climb up to the moon on the pile of IOUs from the US, Japan and other western democracies?

Another valuable resource, no doubt will be the dead oceans - from overfishing and animals killed from plastic rubbish; if only they could find something else to eat.

Before we try and get and that additional freshwater - has anyone found another possible _deposit_ location for all the rubbish and toxic waste we're producing? ...even if we would get at that water, it would only be a stop-gap -- right now, most seem to think that there will always be some new source of whatever resource we need to keep our "unsustainable" pace going...

It's the same about what people say that the shale oil will give the US enough oil for 100 years -- it's _maybe_ 100 years _at the current pace of consumption. But if there is a 100 years worth of more energy - why even _try_ and save? Why not even indulge in even more energy-intensive enterprises?

The same goes for finding huge amounts of new fresh-water - we'll just find ways to consume it even faster, instead of trying to focus on limiting the damage we do to the planet, and treating any additional resources as 'emergency rations' that we won't touch unless there is no other way.

This is not to say that it'll be hard to stop the proliferation of military robots, but - is this really a good idea?

Sure, us Westerners, we can say how good a thing this may be - on the other hand, Gaddafi had some problems after a while with his troops seeing the misery they were spreading. To some extent, the same is true for Assad's Syria..

Can you picture what would happen, if rulers like those got their hands on military robots that will just unquestioningly mow down their own people, if the people don't like their "esteemed" ruler any more?

Or - picture them in the hands of North Korea...

Once they get deployed in one nation, no matter how well "behaved" that one nation will be, they will appear in other places - under less enlightened "leadership".

That brings down the time spend watching media per day PER pound of viewer down from .0786 hours per pound of weight watching media per day to .0737 hours per pound of weight... ;-)

From TFA:
"75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually (or 25 kilograms per square meter, per crop)"

Huh? If it's 75kg of vegetables per square meter in three crops, that doesn't make it 25 kgs per sqm _per crop_... It's still 75kg per square meter...

Sorry - no moderator points today - The answer is bitterly funny, but - unfortunately - also very accurate. Labelling it is "funny" seems like primarily useful to discredit it as a serious answer.

To some extent you need to do that anyway - people arrive at work or go to lunch at different times in different countries... ...shop opening times vary from nation to nation - same timezone or not...

public holidays change from nation to nation...

And for things that are the same - all you'd need to know is the new "offset"...

(and, yes, I've lived and worked in 3 different (European) countries - so I have first hand experience of how different things can be around here - and that is without going to culturally more different places...)

Sorry, WWW is the web - nothing else.
But, yes - commonly, when people say "the internet" they do mean the web.

tel URLs may be part of 'the web' in the sense that you may put tel:-links in your web pages -- but that doesn't make tel: or ftp: or telnet: or gopher: whatever other protocol identifier you may have "the web".

The Web was invented at Cern, not the Internet - the Internet has been around long before then.

If you can still find it, maybe have a look at Ed Krol's "The Whole Internet" (see wikipedia) - a book published in the "earlier" days of the WWW - one that helped really helped popularize "the net"...

With that, the web itself IS a subset of what the internet is - the mere fact that it allows for URL schemes to link to non-www resources doesn't make it less of a subset; unlike gopher, ftp - which didn't have those links...