Google gets 348,085 ‘forget’ requests in Europe

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—Since a top European court ruled people have a right to be forgotten online, Google has received 348,085 requests for tidbits to vanish from search results.

Silicon Valley-based Google, a subsidiary of newly-created parent company Alphabet, complied with less that half of the demands, basing decisions on criteria intended to balance privacy with the public’s right to know.

A report released on Wednesday by Google showed that the top country for requests was France, where the Internet giant is in a standoff with data protection officials.

A European Court of Justice ruling in May 2014 recognizing the “right to be forgotten” on the net opened the door for Google users to ask the search engine to remove results about them that are inaccurate or no longer relevant.

Google set up an online form that people in Europe can fill out to ask for information to be excluded from search results.

Similar processes have been put in place to ask to be forgotten by Microsoft’s Bing search engine that also powers queries at Yahoo.

It is the Internet companies themselves who get to decide which requests to grant.

Microsoft previously disclosed that in the first half of this year it got 3,546 requests that online information be forgotten by Bing, granting half of them.

In the report released on Wednesday, Google said that right-to-be-forgotten requests have targeted slightly more than 1.23 million Internet pages (URLs), and that it agreed to remove 42 percent of them from online search results in Europe.

Some crimes vanish

France was the country with the top number of requests, accounting for 73,399 applications aimed at nearly a quarter of a million URLs, followed by Germany with 60,198 requests concerning 220,589 URLs.

In both countries, about 48 percent of the unwanted links were eliminated from Google search results, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the report indicated that Google granted about 38 percent of the 43,101 requests submitted in the United Kingdom; 37 percent of the 33,106 requests in Spain, and just shy of 30 percent of the 26,186 requests made in fifth-placed Italy.

Google said it complied with nearly 46 percent of the 10,121 requests in Belgium, nearly 41 percent of the 9,687 requests in Sweden, and about 45 percent of the 8,339 requests in Switzerland.

A Google outline of scenarios leading to information being forgotten in searches included pages with content solely about someone’s health, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Common causes for “delisting” pages also included criminal convictions regarding children or stories focusing on criminal charges that were subsequently overturned by courts.

Google said that it had endorsed requests from crime victims or their families to remove from search results news reports of rapes, murders or other assaults.

“We may decline to delist if we determined that the page contains information which is strongly in the public interest,” Google said in an online post.

“Determining whether content is in the public interest is complex and may mean considering many diverse factors.”

The list of factors included whether content relates to the petitioner’s professional life, a past crime, political office, position in public life, or whether the content itself is self-authored content, government documents, or journalistic in nature, according to Google.

Social network memories

Facebook was the top online spot where people wanted information forgotten from searches, with a total of 10,220 URLs removed, according to Google.

The second most common venue for removals was profileengine.com, with 7,986 links to the people-focused search engine removed from Google search results, the report indicated.

The list of Top 10 sites for URLs to be forgotten included Google Groups, YouTube, Badoo, Annuaire, Twitter, and the Google+ social network.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Google refines logo as it prepares to join Alphabet

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is refining its famous logo as it prepares to become a part of a new holding company called Alphabet.

The revised design unveiled Tuesday features the same mix of blue, red, yellow and green that Google has been using throughout its nearly 17-year history, though the hues are slightly different shades.

Google also invented a new typeface called “Product Sans” that is meant to resemble the simple printing in a grade-school book. It will replace a serif typeface that Google has been using in its logo for more than 16 years. The “e” in the company’s name will remain slightly tilted to reflect Google’s sometimes off-kilter thinking.

Although this will be the sixth time that Google has changed its logo since Larry Page and Sergey Brin formed the company, this marks the most noticeable redesign since it dropped an exclamation point that appeared after its name until May 1999.

“I am sure this is going to upset a lot of people because everyone freaks out when a company like this makes a shift like this,” said Wally Krantz, executive creative director at brand consultants Landor. Krantz, though, applauded the change because he believes it gives the company a “fresh” look.

Google is donning the different look as it embarks on a new era.

The Mountain View, California, company is pouring so much money into so many far-flung projects that have little or no connection to its main business of online search and advertising that it’s getting ready to place everything under the Alphabet umbrella.

Under this setup, Google will retain search, YouTube and most of the biggest divisions while smaller operations such as Nest home appliances, life sciences, drone deliveries and venture capital investments will operate as individual companies. All will be overseen by Alphabet, whose CEO will be the Google co-founder Page.

Alphabet hasn’t revealed what its logo will be yet, but the holding company isn’t expected to be officially operating for a few more months.

Google believes its new logo will provide a more versatile identity suited “for a world of seamless computing across an endless number of devices,” the company said in a Tuesday blog post.

The overhaul also will change the appearance of the letter “g” that Google uses as its shorthand logo on the smaller screens of smartphones and other mobile devices.

The “g” will now be capitalized and displayed in color instead of being kept lowercase and white.

A swirl of dots in Google’s colors will also appear when a spoken command for information is being processed or one of the company’s other services is performing a task.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Google says ‘forgetting’ isn’t easy, as removal requests mount

SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Thursday told European officials that forgetting isn’t easy, especially when details are few and guidelines are murky regarding when personal privacy trumps public interest.

The world’s leading Internet search engine said that as of July 18 it had received more than 91,000 requests to delete a combined total of 328,000 links under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling.

The most requests came from France and Germany, with approximately 17,500 and 16,500 respectively, according to a copy of a letter Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer sent to an EU data protection committee.

Another 12,000 removal requests came from Britain, 8,000 from Spain, and 7,500 from Italy.

Google said that 53 percent of the links targeted were removed.

But the California-based Internet titan said it was challenged by having to rely on those making removal requests for information needed to put them in perspective.

“Some requests turn out to be made with false and inaccurate information,” Fleischer said in the letter.

“Even if requesters provide us with accurate information, they understandably may avoid presenting facts that are not in their favor.”

For example, a person requesting the removal of links to information about a crime committed as a teenager may omit that he or she was convicted of similar crimes as an adult, or that he or she is a politician running for office.

Other requests might target a link to information about another person who happens to have the same name.

The 13-page letter contained replies to questions from a meeting last week between several Internet search services and the group of EU data protection regulators.

Google took the opportunity to ask for input on how it should differentiate what is in the public interest and what isn’t, and whether information posted online by governments can be “forgotten” at someone’s request.

Google has been working to balance freedom of information with privacy rights in the wake of the May ruling by the European Court of Justice.

The court said individuals have the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches in certain circumstances, such as if the data is outdated or inaccurate.

European news organizations have opened fire on Google for removing links to stories from search results in the name of adhering to the court order.

The links remain visible on Google.com, the US version of the site, and the restrictions only appear to relate to certain search terms, typically people’s names.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Google Brings the Noise: Adds Upcoming Concerts to Search Results

Google’s never ending quest to sort and categorize everything on the planet continues as the search engine will now inform you of upcoming concerts in the area. The venerable search engine already brings you movie showings, tell you the weather, perform calculations, and even give you currency exchange rates. Pretty soon it’s going to be faster to just say what Google’s can’t do.

Finding concerts on Google is excrutiatingly easy. Simply type the name of a band into Google, and nearby concert dates will appear below the official website of the band. According to Google’s blog post, the results come from various sources including the official website of the band. It’s also pretty smart about the search results, returning only upcoming shows that are near to your current location. So if you don’t see any results for your favorite band, it probably just means they’re not coming close anytime soon. The results will also include links to where you can buy tickets, if online purchase options are available.


source: http://www.geekosystem.com/google-concert-search/