"Mark Williamson" node.ue@gmail.com wrote in message news:849f98ed0804281327h3c1f2e07w612a3c37ce32024c@mail.gmail.com...
Well, I think there's a point where it goes from being a dick to just not bending over backwards to comply with unreasonable requests. I think this is a case of the latter.
Mark
2008/4/28 Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org:
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David Gerard wrote:
2008/4/28 Mark Williamson
My general view on this is that if somebody sends an e-mail, that is their problem. If they don't want their employer to find it, they should have thought of that before they sent it.
People occasionally slip up horribly. But almost all requests for message removal I've *ever* seen are specious.
Most requests go like this:
"I sent a mail to the list (accidentally instead of offlist /
forgetting
about my default work email signature) and it includes my (real name / private phone number / address) which I don't want on the internet, can you please remove it from the archives so it's not the top Google hit forever?"
We may scoff and roll our eyes and say "If you don't want it on Google, don't post it on a public list!" but the point is they *didn't* intend to publish it. Refusing to remove them on principle violates the "don't be a dick" rule, from which all other ethical principles can be logically derived.
So, I'm stuck at refusing to remove them most of the time because it's
a
very disruptive operation, and doing annoying things to the search to reduce the "Google signature" of the mails still floating in the
archive.
"Hello - you're through to Royal Mail, Elizabeth speaking. How may I help?" "I've just posted a letter, can I have it back please?" "No. I'm sorry, that's not possible." "I include something I shouldn't have done - and it's really important that the recipient doesn't see it!" "I'm sorry, you should have thought of that before you posted it." "I didn't realise! You see, the thing is I wrote it on the back of some scrap paper and I've just realised that there was some highly confidential information on the other side. It's vital that it doesn't get delivered." "Oh well, if it was just a mistake then that's a different story. Of course we'll be happy to drop everything else we're doing and look through the 80 MILLION items of mail that we deliver every single day in order to retrieve your letter. It will take a week or so, but I'm sure it doesn't matter if it inconveniences EVERYONE else."
Hmmm... I think not... :-)
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)