Thanks very much for this, Stephen and the legal team. I especially appreciate that the WMF has decided to make public the specific notifications of the use of the "Right to be forgotten" in the EU.[1] It's interesting that the bulk of the suppression requests have come from a single (ex?) Wikimedian targeting internal process pages of his home wiki. Not shockingly, the RtF request is now in the top 5 results on a Google search of that persons name.
The NY Times covered the transparency report: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/wikipedia-details-government-data-requests/?src=twr [1]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Notices_received_from_search_engines On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 6:15 AM, Stephen LaPorte <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All, > > The “right to be forgotten” has been the subject of much discussion and > debate (including on this list),[1] particularly following the May European > Court of Justice judgment ordering Google to delist some links related to a > Spanish citizen.[2] Since then, search engines have been receiving requests > to remove hundreds of thousands of URLs from search results. Google > recently released more information about its right to be forgotten > requests.[3] > > The WMF legal team has been watching the “right to be forgotten” issue > closely and considering what legal strategies we should take going forward. > Today, the WMF published its first transparency report[4]—you can read more > in this blog post.[5] WMF held a press briefing announcing our strategy of > advocacy and transparency on link censorship. We will oppose what we see as > a misguided court decision that has resulted in a crude implementation of > the “right to be forgotten.” Lila has also issued a statement,[6] and, > Geoff, WMF’s general counsel, and Michelle Paulson, WMF's legal counsel, > have published a blog on the subject.[7] As the topic is of interest to > this group, we wanted to keep you informed of these recent legal > developments. > > Thanks, > Stephen > > [1] > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-June/000547.html, > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/advocacy_advisors/2014-June/000539.html > [2] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0131 > [3] > https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/file/d/0B8syaai6SSfiT0EwRUFyOENqR3M/edit > [4] http://transparency.wikimedia.org/ > [5] > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikimedia-foundation-releases-first-transparency-report/ > [6] > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/european-court-decision-punches-holes-in-free-knowledge/ > [7] > https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikipedia-pages-censored-in-european-search-results/ > > -- > Stephen LaPorte > Legal Counsel > Wikimedia Foundation > > *NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and > ethical reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, > community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. > For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.* > > _______________________________________________ > Advocacy_Advisors mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors > > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
