What Now for Google? EU Decision Hands Power Back to the People?

Google and other search engine providers can be ordered to delete links to outdated information about a person published on the Internet, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled. The decision this week by the European Court of Justice on what has been dubbed ‘the right to be forgotten’ is a landmark judgement which I predict will see a sea-change in the way search engines, social networking sites and other websites hold information that is deemed in the public interest or not. The digital revolution has advanced at such a rapid rate that it seems legislative reforms have

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Data Protection Commissioner Releases 2013 Report

Complaints down, but major revelations around state intelligence agencies focus attention on privacy rights   The Data Protection Commissioner’s (DPC) Report for 2013 shows that while complaints were down overall compared to the previous year, 910 versus 1,349, there was a marked concentration of complaints around requests for access. More than half (57%) of complaints investigated in 2013 related to difficulties gaining access to personal data held by organisations, with 517 complaints in this category. A breakdown of the complaints show that electronic direct marketing accounted for less than a quarter (22.4%), while most other complaints were in the low

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