Article 4DDG5 That Was Quick: Thomas Goolnik Already Gets Google To Forget Our Latest Story About Thomas Goolnik Getting Google To Forget Stories About Thomas Goolnik

That Was Quick: Thomas Goolnik Already Gets Google To Forget Our Latest Story About Thomas Goolnik Getting Google To Forget Stories About Thomas Goolnik

by
Mike Masnick
from Techdirt on (#4DDG5)
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Okay, let's start with this even higher up this time:

  1. Dear Google RTBF reviewer (who I'm sure will be reading this soon): Under the terms of the GDPR, you are only supposed to agree to a content removal if what we are publishing is "personal data" that is no longer necessary, and (importantly, please read this, guys) that is not "for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information" or "for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes...." This post, like the last few, are news stories that are in the public interest, specifically about how someone is abusing the GDPR's "right to erasure" process to delete news reports about his abuse of the GDPR "right to erasure" process. This story is not about anything earlier that Thomas Goolnik may or may not have done. It is about what he did within the last few days. It is not old. It is not no longer relevant. It is directly relevant, and this post should not be subject to any GDPR right to erasure claims.
  2. Dear Thomas Goolnik: Seriously dude? How much longer is this going to go on? It is legal for a news report to mention your name. We're not even talking about the original thing you want forgotten. We're talking about what you've been up to the past few years trying to get everyone to forget the thing you want forgotten. Maybe let it go.
Right. So if the rest of you hadn't guessed by now, Thomas Goolnik has, once again, successfully convinced Google to "erase" our most recent article about Thomas Goolnik getting Google to delete a previous article about Thomas Goolnik getting Google to delete a previous article about Thomas Goolnik getting Google to delete a previous article from its search results on the name Thomas Goolnik in the EU.

Even if one were to agree that the original articles he wanted delisted from searches under his name (which began with a NY Times article from 2002, which we don't believe should have been delisted under the RTBF guidelines in the EU), the fact that Goolnik continues to get more modern articles about his abuse of the RTBF process delisted seems problematic. It seems like the sort of thing that is very much in the public interest to monitor and report on, seeing as many supporters of the GDPR insist that the RTBF process would not, in fact, be used to censor news stories. It is being used to do exactly that.



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