Let me tell you something, Mate. We Aussies don't do sportsing anymore, we do sporties. 'Cause in Oz, it's all about rooting for your favourite team.

While, I absolutely believe it's google's job to report illegal activity [...]

It really shouldn't be Google's job to report illegal activity. If a company is going to do cloud computing on the scale Google does, there should be privacy laws in place, similar to doctor/patient privilege, or lawyer/client privilege, or priest/confessioner privilege. Google might be put on the spot through a warrant or whatever, but should not volunteer any information of their own.

And before someone points out that I've somehow agreed to this through an EULA, I don't use their services but others do, and my stuff can easily end up there through no fault any people, but just because Google is too agressive about spying on everyone.

On the contrary, increasing the sample size to big data sizes of say 2 billion subjects would definitely fix that bias problem. [of course this is unrealistic].

Not that I disagree, but I think first we need a debate on what privacy means in light of modern technologies. The practical rules and assumptions of yesterday will not protect the same values and principles when faced with the technology of tomorrow. Put another way, for the spirit of the law to be preserved, the letter of the law may have to change, perhaps dramatically.

The technologies of today have not substantially changed from the technologies we had 20 years ago when privacy rules were put in place. CS algorithms are the same. Database principles are the same. Computers still have cpus, RAM, and hard disks. Networking is based on the old TCP/IP and UDP protcols from the 70s. Granted, we now use Javascript instead of C or VisualBASIC. We use HTML web apps instead of mainframe server apps and special client software.

The other problem is sample size. Psychology sample sizes are *way* too small. In a world of 8 billion people today, anything you find out in a psychological experiment that involves at most a few hundred subjects, often less, cannot have anything universal to say. The samples are just too small.

Here's an analogy. You plant a dozen tulips in your garden, and observe how well they grow when you do X. Now you claim all plants will grow like that when you do X. The claim is way too broad. Even if you had a dozen identical tulips, and you grew them on the himalaya while doing X, you'd have different results.

No, in small villages, YOU don't exist. You are just the most recent cog and are defined by the unforgettable history of your family, which you can make up as you please (with consequences)

FTFY. I completely agree that connections are important, but you're assuming that anyone is truthful about their identity and their past, which is not the case, especially if they move to start afresh somewhere else. One added advantage in Europe was the plethora of small states and local dialects/languages, you could move 50km away and be literally in a different country.

Saying things will be forgotten if it can't be Googled/Binged is like saying you won't get robbed so long as you don't post a sign that your door isn't locked.

Or, it's like saying you won't be robbed in a functional decent community, with security patrolling the streets regularly and enforcing laws. It's not a 100% guarantee, but if you deliberately let the neighbourhood decay with gangs and drug dealers ruling the streets, well you're an idiot.

You're being disingenous. Obviously in modern times communication and internet allows information to travel freely, but that was not the case even 100 years ago, when most people didn't have a telephone, and travelling a few towns away would take the whole day.

The point of the small town analogy is that for most of human history, the ability to be forgotten was rather easy to accomplish - although not without cost. The benefit of being unknown in a new town had to be weighed against the pervasive distrust of strangers. You started with a clean slate, but that meant a real clean slate - you might be an outlaw or anything, really, and had to prove yourself.

You might argue that it is really the website's duty to begin with to comply with rights to be forgotten, and they are the only ones responsible for any possible contempt, but since no one contacted them to begin with asking to be forgotten I think that they are legally in the clear.

It is the duty of every company which collects information about people to comply with the rights to be forgotten. Google is one of those companies, which collects data about people, and therefore they must legally comply.

You are totally right that the source website has the same duty, and should be held responsible as well (at least if they are a company. The law doesn't apply to private individuals).

Hmm... in small-town communities, you really "can't be forgotten" for stupid shit you do in your life.

That's not actually true either. Small towns historically have been limited to local knowledge about residents, which actually helps enormously the right "to be forgotten". All anyone who ever wanted to be forgotten had to do was move about two towns down the road.

Thanks, you beat me to it. It's ironic that those who depend on Google to "remember" the past are also the most susceptible to Google's astroturfing games about the present.

Closing one's ears to people one might disagree with is a sure way to rot as a community.

[Citation needed]

There is a time for listening, and a time for no longer listening. All great communities have systems for penalizing trolls and idiotic opinions which have been debunked many times before. Slashdot is a good example of such a community: lots of "comments" end up at -1, which is an excellent form of censorship.

The point of the article is that, once some members of the community have been shown to be untrustworthy and plain liars, they should not be listened to anymore. Or at least, they should not be invited to high profile venues where they can spread their "side". The slashdot equivalent would be that such people should not be getting +5, but rather -1.

I see you don't understand how the network works. I pay for all the bandwidth I use (and some I don't use), through an agreement with my ISP. There are peering arrangements in place, but the bandwith that some website uses to serve me content is their own problem. If they're smart, they do like Google does and compress the hell out of what they serve, and work out deals with their providers etc. Moreover, the ads often originate from another network location, so the website I visit doesn't technically serve them to me. When that happens, we are talking about a menage a trois, disguised as an ordinary one on one relationship between me, the web surfer, and the website operator. You're right that I request content from the website. You're wrong about not making a distinction which content I request. I in fact request the parts I value, and do not request the ads.

The point is that I am not taking or using anyone's bandwidth but my own, that I expect websites to do the same, and that advertisers are uninvited interlopers in a private relationship. That's what peering is all about. FIgure out how to phrase your objections within that framework and maybe I'll believe some of your arguments.

That's just silly. How about I put a site behind a "paywall" that says I serve annoying ads.

Yup, that's fine.

Then how about I make the paywall free with no registration.

That would be stupid, as it makes it trivial to traverse it. But you are free to do as you please.

Then how about I make the paywall invisible and expect you to just go away if you don't like the way I've set up my paywall on my site.

That would be wishful thinking. Whereas in your imagination, you see a paywall, in actual fact there isn't one. You are free to imagine anything you like, and I am free to only use cold hard facts in my decision processes. I see that there is no paywall, so I will step over "it" anytime I please. There, that's how the world works.

like it or not, that's what consumers want.

If that was true, then ad blocking tools would not be very popular. They are, so this isn't true.

wanting to get paid for a service you provide is not evil. i assume you provide a service for your day job that you already admitted you get paid for? so you are you evil? no, it's just that you decided the work you do is worth getting paid for. well, great, bully for you then huh?

Actually, I only get paid because I signed a contract to provide my services in return for payment. The contract represents a mutually beneficial prior agreement.

If I went to a random shop on a saturday morning, and started washing their windows, and then I went inside and demanded to be paid - because I feel that it's fair to be paid for a service I give - I'd be laughed out of the shop. The windows didn't need washing, and I was blocking the customers. And rightly so, because there really should have been a prior agreement in place. Even as simple as entering the shop, and _asking_ if I can wash the windows in return for money.

I don't have an agreement with any website to view their ads. As such, if the operators come to me and demand I look at their ads, I will laugh in their face, and continue to use an ad blocker.

Agreements matter, otherwise one side is deluding themselves. The world doesn't operate on wishful thinking.