Free Republic

Kudos to Margaret Brennan of CBS for asking Adam Schiff on Sunday about his release of phone logs of his political opponents. Mr. Schiff dismissed any criticism, and his reason is revealing about the balance of power in Washington. “The blowback has only come from the far right,” Mr. Schiff said. “But look, every investigator seeks phone records to corroborate, sometimes to contradict, a witness’s testimony.” Yes, but executive-branch investigators who want to get data from private telecom companies typically must obtain some kind of judicial order. Mr. Schiff did it himself. Prosecutors are also supposed to limit the release...

Over the past few weeks, we’ve learned a lot about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and how Facebook uses your data. The revelations have pushed many users—including some brands and celebrities—to leave the social network altogether. Rather than simply deleting your profile or profile information, however, some are advising a slightly different tactic to protect your online identity: tainting that data. Developer and former systems administrator Kevin Matthew published a script that goes back through your Facebook posts and edits them with randomly generated characters. Based on his knowledge as a systems administrator, Matthew explains that “even by conservative assumptions, your data...

The EU’s justice commissioner has accused internet giant Google of leading a campaign to shoot down data protection reforms. Speaking in Lyon, France on Monday (18 August), the commissioner, Martine Reicherts, said: “Google and other affected companies who complain loudly” about a recent EU court verdict on personal data are “detractors … attempting to throw a new spanner in the works”. The Luxembourg-based EU court in May ruled that Google must remove links to any content that is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” or face a fine.The ruling was based on the bloc’s 1995 data protection law, which are...

Google’s interpretation of the European Court of Justice’s “right to be forgotten” ruling is prejudicing the intention of the court, the State’s data protection watchdog said yesterday, as regulators and search engine giants met in Brussels to discuss the matter. Billy Hawkes, who will shortly retire as Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, described the ruling as “a very difficult decision by the European Court of Justice”. The ruling, made in May, has effectively exposed Google to criticism both for removing links and for refusing requests for links to be removed. …

Google's right to be forgotten system is woefully inadequate and censoring things it shouldn't. We decided to make a number of right to be forgotten claims to see what would happen. One request was to remove search listings for an automated online profile page that contained someone's name and Twitter handle. There are loads of websites that collate information about people and spew out automated profiles – 192.com and Peekyou.com being two examples. These websites might be annoying, but should they ever be censored from search results if all they are doing is collating publicly available information? None of the information...

Google has removed over 70,000 Internet links, amid accusations it is trying to promote critical reactions to a EU court ruling by targeting major media outlets. The US firm on Thursday (3 July) said it was getting around 1,000 “right to be forgotten” requests a day. The EU court in Luxembourg in May ruled the search giant should delete links on searches done on the basis of a person’s name if found “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.” …

Google is starting to accept requests from Europeans who want to erase unflattering information from the results produced by the world’s dominant search engine. The demands can be submitted on a Web page that Google opened late Thursday in response to a landmark ruling issued two weeks ago by Europe’s highest court. The decision gives Europeans the means to polish their online reputations by petitioning Google and other search engines to remove potentially damaging links to newspaper articles and other websites with embarrassing information about their past activities. […] It’s unclear when the whitewashing will begin. So far, Google has...