Breaking Up Google Isn’t Nearly Enough; The New York Times, August 27, 2024

Julia Angwin , The New York Times; Breaking Up Google Isn’t Nearly Enough

"Competitors need access to something else that Google monopolizes: data about our searches. Why? Think of Google as the library of our era; it’s the first stop we go to when seeking information. Anyone who wants to build a rival library needs to know what readers are looking for in order to stock the right books. They also need to know which books are most popular, and which ones people return quickly because they’re no good."

Sure, Google’s AI overviews could be useful – if you like eating rocks; The Guardian, June 1, 2024

 John Naughton, The Guardian; Sure, Google’s AI overviews could be useful – if you like eating rocks

"To date, some of this searching suggests subhuman capabilities, or perhaps just human-level gullibility. At any rate, users have been told that glue is useful for ensuring that cheese sticks to pizza, that they could stare at the sun for for up to 30 minutes, and that geologists suggest eating one rock per day (presumably to combat iron deficiency). Memo to Google: do not train your AI on Reddit or the Onion."

Dutch surgeon wins landmark 'right to be forgotten' case; The Guardian, January 21, 2019

Daniel Boffey, The Guardian; Dutch surgeon wins landmark 'right to be forgotten' case

"A Dutch surgeon formally disciplined for her medical negligence has won a legal action to remove Google search results about her case in a landmark “right to be forgotten” ruling...

Google and the Dutch data privacy watchdog, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, initially rejected attempts to have the links removed on the basis that the doctor was still on probation and the information remained relevant.

However, in what is said to be the first right to be forgotten case involving medical negligence by a doctor, the district court of Amsterdam subsequently ruled the surgeon had “an interest in not indicating that every time someone enters their full name in Google’s search engine, (almost) immediately the mention of her name appears on the ‘blacklist of doctors’, and this importance adds more weight than the public’s interest in finding this information in this way”...

The European court of justice established the “right to be forgotten” in a 2014 ruling relating to a Spanish citizen’s claim against material about him found on Google searches. It allows European citizens to ask search engines to remove links to “inadequate, irrelevant or … excessive” content. About 3 million people in Europe have since made such a request."