Hi All,

We are very happy to report that we have released the Wikimedia Foundation's first transparency report, which can be found at transparency.wikimedia.org. You can read more about the release in this blog post https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikimedia-foundation-releases-first-transparency-report/. We encourage you to take a look and explore the report!

We would also like to update you on some news regarding the "right to be forgotten." The right to be forgotten has been the subject of much discussion and debate, within the Wikimedia movement and throughout the world, particularly following the May European Court of Justice judgment http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0131 ordering Google to delist some links related to a Spanish citizen. Since then, search engines have been receiving requests to remove hundreds of thousands of URLs from search results. Google recently released more information https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/file/d/0B8syaai6SSfiT0EwRUFyOENqR3M/edit about its right to be forgotten requests.

Since the judgment, the WMF legal team has been watching the “right to be forgotten” issue closely and considering what legal strategies we should take going forward. Over the course of the last week or so, we have received our first five notices from Google advising us that over 50 links to Wikimedia sites were to be removed from search results.

Today, WMF held a press briefing announcing our strategy of advocacy and transparency on link censorship. We will oppose what we see as a misguided court decision that has resulted in a crude implementation of the “right to be forgotten.” Lila has also issued a statement https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/european-court-decision-punches-holes-in-free-knowledge/, and Geoff and I have published a blog https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/08/06/wikipedia-pages-censored-in-european-search-results/ about the notices we have received and our plan going forward.

Best,

Michelle