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Will Google be asked to unindex more and more pages?

Prviacy issues come to mind..

         

vitaplease

7:34 pm on Sep 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Check Google news [news.google.com].

The calmanac.com "news" names people by name for things they may have done?

snippet from the disclaimer at the bottom:

..where they will remain part of a permanent record of the newspaper, and are likely to be included in search engines, such as Google and Yahoo.

I sadly cannot post the url because it will probably be edited, but the point is this site puts people on a permanent "black" list with their whole name.

For me it is unclear if they are already convicted. And even if they are, should their names be permanently found in a search engine?

The site puts in a disclaimer that all this information may be accessed through a search engine such as Google (the above quote) - which is new to me and in a way quite decent. However, putting names to acts on the web like this will lead to many people rightly asking for Google to unindex this page - and rightly so!

Your opinions?

stuntdubl

7:42 pm on Sep 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Censorship will always breed counterculture. If google bans all sites on nazis, mass murderers or pro-anorexia (which may or may not be a good idea), someone will develop a search engine that search's for counterculture sites which will get indexed. Ridding pages from Google, is not ridding them from the internet, just making them a little less accessible. People who want to find information on these subjects will, and have the right to do so. I guess all freedom comes with a price. Today should be a definite reminder of that.

mivox

7:45 pm on Sep 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If you're referring to a "police beat" sort of listing of local arrests and whatnot, such pages have been a staple feature of newspapers for as long as I can remember (and probably much longer than that).

I can't see why a newspaper should have to exclude an entire page/feature of their publication from their online presence just because people's names are included in a negative context. The next logical step would be saying that all coverage of criminal activity and criminal court cases must be kept off the internet until/unless a guilty verdict is returned by the jury, which would just be silly. It would mean censoring an entire genre of news coverage...

buckworks

8:11 pm on Sep 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Journalistic ethics as taught in Canadian schools would say that someone's name should not be in the paper just for being arrested, only for actually being charged for an offense.

One of the ways Canucks are different, I suppose ...

andreasfriedrich

8:17 pm on Sep 11, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The result [...] dictated by the fundamental proposition that if [...] civil rights are to remain vital for all, they must protect not only those that society deems acceptable, but also those whose ideas it quite justifiably rejects and despises (Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir. 1978)) would be IMHO not to allow the press to publish the names of people who are not yet convicted.

In spectacular cases the public might have an interest in being informed about the court preceedings and facts about the crime prior to a conviction. In those cases it will be justified to interfere with the suspectīs rights. The extensive media coverage will ensure that in the case of an acquittal that fact will become known as well.

But whatīs the big interest in petty crimes as reported in those articals. As I can tell you from my own experience in court it is amazing how many cases end with an acquittal when the public prosecution thought the case to be a clear conviction. And will the press really inform the public that a person they named as being arrested was acquitted? No, they will not. People donīt like those news, so the press wonīt bother.

vitaplease

5:57 am on Sep 12, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If you're referring to a "police beat" sort of listing of local arrests and whatnot..

Yes, sorry I did not recheck the earlier posted link, this search on google police [news.google.com] should come up with the example I meant.

...such pages have been a staple feature of newspapers

1. If the Police or newspaper publishes my name because I drove a car with a bit too much alcohol when I was 18:

Should this be a one time publication in a newpaper print? or an eternal find on a website?

snipped snippet from the bottom of the page:

The news ...including the Police Calls columns, appear on the .... Web site, .... where they will remain part of a permanent record of the newspaper...

and therefore an eternal find with Google, for anyone (employer) ten years later in life, just by typing my name?

2. Snippet from the top of the Police calls Amanac:

...Under the law, people charged with offenses are considered innocent until convicted.

I would hope these online services have a decency to remove these names sooner or later. I am sure that in some other societies, cultures or countries such name dropping whilst under suspicion would not be aloud.

I know it happens and happened in some form or other in the past in print.
Its just that a site and Google's full text indexing can give eternal implications.

I am glad I had my infant wild times while internet was still in its real infancy :)