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A comment on America should borrow from Europe’s data-privacy law. Parent comment

Re:America should borrow from Europe’s data-privacy law by tankerslay on Sunday April 08, 2018 @12:32PM (#16786875)
Just eliminate the various liability shields that have been enacted for third-party content. In certain areas (e.g. the personals website crackdown) we are moving in this direction already.

If you make a search engine vulnerable to a libel lawsuit because, for example, their search results make it look like Joe So-and-So was arrested for DUI (when it was actually Joe So-and-Sew or some such thing), they'll just stop indexing that stuff entirely.

Best to avoid creating new laws where old legal concepts will work fine.

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Re:America should borrow from Europe’s data-privacy law by amarkov on Sunday April 08, 2018 @12:54PM (#16786984)
Is that really the world we want, though? If Google is liable for third-party defamation, aren't they likely to deindex any negative news about anyone who threatens to sue them?
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Re:America should borrow from Europe’s data-privacy law by tankerslay on Sunday April 08, 2018 @01:16PM (#16787085)
If it's about a public figure (even a limited-purpose public figure), there's no problem because that speech is already highly protected against libel claims.

If it's basically just non-newsworthy information about private citizens, then I do not think they should be shielded from liability.

[ Parent | on HN ]