You fail to grasp the concept of due process.

You're missing the point of the xkcd. This *is* the government censoring my speech, so yes, it is censorship.

You're missing the point. If you ask me private stuff, *and I am stupid enough to tell you*, of course you're free to do what you will with it. You're removing personal responsibility from the equation. Likewise a corporation is free to do whatever they want with information they collect so long as they do not violate any contract with me in doing so. These are often called "privacy policies". If the privacy policy says "we can sell or publish your data", then I probably should be wary of what I post. On other other hand, if they say they will keep things private, and they don't then, they have a potential lawsuit on their hands.

And you're probably right that big names won't get away with abusing this, but plenty of small fish will, until they, aided by their "privacy" eventually become big fish. I could rattle off the names of hundreds of smaller cults to you with lesser known leaders who I can pretty much guarantee will abuse this law if given the chance to. You're also neglecting to consider that forbidding a person from mentioning, say in scientology's case, the name of an "auditor" or a witness to an event, could potentially take an entire website down. What you're saying is that it's only OK to mention somebody who is a "public figure". Anybody else and that whole page goes poof from the visible internet.

Yes, but the way i'm reading this, it won't be the courts who decide whether a matter is of public interest, it will be the responsibility of the service providers. Even if this is not the case, at least in the states "public interest" is more often than not interpreted to mean "been discussed by the legislature". In that respect, it seems sort of like the DMCA (automatic take down, then the onus is the user to provide proof it doesn't infringe).

It seems like this provides a haven for cult leaders and those sorts of people who may not fall into the category of "public interest", but would be nevertheless in the public interest to know about. Also, what if I don't want to myself be identified. Again, the cult example is a good one here. Say I post something about David Miscaviage of Scientology or another high up official. Does this now mean they are effectively immune to criticism? Will entire websites such as xenu.net and the like be removed from Google's results because they happen to mention individuals who may not be covered by this "public interest" label? What if I don't have the money to go to court?

It seems to me that Europeans are reflexively taking the "privacy" side of this argument even when in actual fact what is being done has nothing to do with privacy, rather censorship. A person has a right to privacy for sure, but once things do go public, preventing others from talking about it infringes on *their* rights. You can't defend one right by taking away another. If that's what you think you're doing, you need to re-evaluate your definition of rights.

You may disagree with me, but i'd be willing to bet good money that in a few years the abuse of this law will have Europeans switching to VPNs to get unfiltered US internet service.

Privacy is not censoring what other people have to say about you. That's not even mentioning the potential for abuse.

So sue. That's what defamation law is there for. Works pretty much anywhere, even in the states. And as an added bonus, it gets to the problem at it's source.

But what about *my speech*? I have a website about a woman who refers kids to abusive programs to "help" them. The owner of one of the programs she sent kids to threw kids down stairs and pled no contest in court to charges of child abuse. She refers kids to programs for kickbacks, just as that judge in PA did, but nothing she has done is technically legal, so I felt that a website would help warn others about her.

Does her right to "privacy" include the right to hide her current bad actions and prevent *my speech* from being read by others? You are also mistaken about the US view speech. Defamation can indeed get you sued. However, we in the US believe in due process. In other words, something is not defamatory unless it has been judged to be so in court.

Also, you're splitting hairs about the Google results. It's like arguing that a government modifying DNS records to censor websites isn't really censorship because you can still type in the IP address. If you do something that prevents 99% of people from finding a piece of information, it's censorship no matter what you want to call it.

There is a website I made about a deceptive woman who refers kids to abusive programs a while back. All the information on there is true. It serves to warn others away, and it works. Should this person be able to remove *my* website from Google's results? I've already won a WIPO dispute over it.

Even if it's true? You're asking for a world without natural consequences. Fool.

It isn't defamatory until a court says it is, in which case the source material can be removed by court order, and no sooner. This european idiocy has even more potential for abuse than the DMCA.

Thank you for genuinely making me laugh. That's the funniest thing i've read all week.

You're missing the point. A business that did this would be at a disadvantage because of the dissatisfied employees (especially competent ones) who would go elsewhere. The usual counter argument is that if everybody does it, then there is no "freedom", but of course this ignores the fact that the one business that didn't do this would have a massive advantage. Happy workers are productive workers. So yes, the market sorts it out here too.

Yeah, sure, there might be situations where entire low skilled sectors of work did this sort of thing (like with fast food drug testing), but at the same time, that simply provides an incentive to better one's self and maybe go back to college. Plenty of people do it. It's not always easy but if people work at it, it's almost always possible.

Here in France, a provider called "Free" provides gigabit ftth. They also give you a static IP. Their network is also native IPv6. They don't care how you use your bandwith either. Their "box" has a built in seedbox and plenty of ports for external drives (both esata and USB). They don't throttle and they have a history of ignoring the French three strikes law as well. The only issue is they have a peering disagreement with Google so you can't even watch youtube with all that speed at peak hours.

+5 . I was gonna say just this. It could also be something neurological. It could be psychological. It could be diet. It could be sleep patterns. It could be all sorts of things, none of which slashdot is qualified to diagnose. It's like asking for legal advice here. Stupid fucking idea. Myabe don't see a shrink first, but if the physical gets ruled out, then it's always a good idea to look towards the psychological.

They could make them, but i'm not sure anybody would buy them. Why? Because they're not fucking shiny, that's why. People want shiny shit. Personally, I prefer matte as well, but outside the tech community, it's harder to find that as a preference.