They can criticise it all they want. Our (unelected) masters in Brussels have spoken, so that's an end to it.

Ultimately, as sometimes happen, what one desires is not what one gets.

The current question (and rightly ) is WHO makes the decision as to who or what should be forgotten. That was not codified in the original judgement.

(Also know as "comes back to bite one in the a$$..."

Our (unelected) masters in Brussels have spoken, so that's an end to it

The European Court of Justice is in Luxembourg, not Belgium.

The ruling was made by judges, not politicians.

...

The laws that we English have to obey (which are interpreted by judges, mainly foreign ones) are made by politicians in Brussels. Hopefully, after the next election that situation will change. The fact remains, in the meanwhile, that our House of Lords can do diddly squat about it.

The laws that we English have to obey

I doubt that Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask would claim to be English.

are made by politicians in Brussels

As allowed by the European Communities Act 1972 (and amendments).

It is a UK law, made by the elected (and sovereign) UK Parliament.

This is known in UK as democracy.

...

It is a UK law, made by the elected (and sovereign) UK Parliament.

This is known in UK as democracy.

This is one subject I would love to discuss for ages! Sadly this the wrong forum.

However; even Google, Microsoft et al have to obey European law when trading in Europe. Microsoft have already learned that lesson well, Google still have a few chapters to revise.

<snip>
Meanwhile, Google has responded to EU regulators, and the company's Peter Fleischer is quoted as saying:

“We have seen see many cases of business competitors trying to abuse removals processes to reduce each others’ web presence,” he said. “We have also seen examples of data subjects who indiscriminately submit many URLs that are displayed as search results for their name, even though some URLs are actually about another person with the same name.”

“Abuse of such processes is a well-documented phenomenon – one academic study based on Google’s published information about copyright-based removals estimated that more than 50% of removal requests originated with competitors targeting each others’ sites for removal from search results,” said Fleischer.

Source: [theguardian.com...]

...

[edited by: goodroi at 10:10 am (utc) on Aug 3, 2014]
[edit reason] Let's keep this professional and avoid off-topic comments [/edit]

Like the House of Lords, Google can respond as much as they wish. They have to obey the law. If it was badly framed, then tough. It is still the law.

<snip>

[edited by: goodroi at 10:13 am (utc) on Aug 3, 2014]
[edit reason] off-topic [/edit]

But somehow the European Court of Justice is still in Luxembourg.

And the people in Brussels who you claim are your unelected masters still work in accordance with the expressed wishes of elected UK politicians and only insofar as UK law allows (European Communities Act 1972).

This act can be repealed at any time by the elected UK government, but despite numerous changes in 42 years (including 8 different prime ministers) such a move has never been on the agenda.

Your "masters" are in Westminster, not Belgium.

<snip>
...

[edited by: goodroi at 10:13 am (utc) on Aug 3, 2014]
[edit reason] off-topic [/edit]

Of course the European court is in Luxembourg. European laws however are created in Brussels and Strasbourg. Luxembourg is merely a centre where lawyers and administrators work extremely hard for grateful taxpayers, doing vital work to improve the lot of, well, lawyers and administrators.

The term "sovereign UK parliament" is an oxymoron.

Democracy is two wolves and a flock of sheep deciding what to have for dinner. The wolves will lie repeatedly to the sheep to convince them that the decision is undoubtedly theirs, before devouring them anyway.

The wishes of UK politicians are to say and do anything that is necessary to allow them to gain, or stay in, power. The Civil Service would never, in any case, allow any minister to do anything so 'brave' as to alter any status quo without a full frank and meaningful discussion, after all proper procedures have been fully investigated and the views of all stakeholders ascertained, in the fullness of time.

And the 'right to be forgotten' will remain, in Britain at least, even if the House of Lords, Ozymandias (King of Kings), The Emperor of Rome and all the denizens of Heaven and Hades object. Unless, of course, our politicians grow a collective backbone and we leave the madhouse called Europe.

Our (unelected) masters in Brussels have spoken, so that's an end to it.

The "right to be forgotten" ruling was made by judges in Luxembourg.

In doing so the judges rejected the view of the EU Commission in Brussels.

From the judgment:

89 By Question 3, the referring court asks, in essence, whether Article 12(b) and subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 of Directive 95/46 are to be interpreted as enabling the data subject to require the operator of a search engine to remove from the list of results displayed following a search made on the basis of his name links to web pages published lawfully by third parties and containing true information relating to him, on the ground that that information may be prejudicial to him or that he wishes it to be ‘forgotten’ after a certain time.

90 Google Spain, Google Inc., the Greek, Austrian and Polish Governments and the Commission consider that this question should be answered in the negative.

So your "unelected masters" in Brussels actually sided with Google - and lost.

But the politicians remain free to change the law - it is what they do for a living.

<snip>

[edited by: goodroi at 10:11 am (utc) on Aug 3, 2014]
[edit reason] off-topic [/edit]