Final Case Study Compilation with Intro and Conclusion

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Legal Rights of Society in General

When thinking of legal rights that society have in general it is important to think about where these ideas originated from, so there is a good idea of why these legal rights exist at all. One line of thought for legal rights to citizens is captured in a book that attempts to analyze all of society and examines great text that could be used as rationale for decision making for society. (Pattaro, 2009, p. 100) The works in question include Plato, Heidegger, Thomas Aquinas, the Bible, the Qur’an, and many other books that were the building blocks of society. (Pattaro, 2009, p. 100) What the significance of these books entail is that they set legal precedent for the rights we have in society which is defined as legal norms or morals. (Pattaro, 2009, p. 101) The reason that legal rights are important to have and understand the origin is due to when companies like Google attempt to use information they have gathered in an unethical way and attempt to push decisions based on information a legal citizen has given them. What the concern is, is that there is an increasing push for globalism in society by larger corporations, so that there is a larger swathe of income to gain and to assert dominance in the domain that they are attempting to perfect. As with colonialism there are similarities the ideology of globalism share with it, like “With a propensity to overstate the singularity of the present, these often posit a radical discontinuity between contemporary social life and that in the recent past.” (Randeria, 2007, p. 4) So, the combination of globalization and the review of legal origin for many cultures is the starting point of how society has and instills their legal rights when attempting to protect themselves against unethical business decisions made by companies like Google and will use these protections against other corporations as well.

Legal Rights of Those Directly Involved

The legal rights of those directly involved with those making decisions for Google and of those experiencing the consequences of Google often differ based on their actions and where they live. For example, in 2012 the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that the decision makers for Google had a right to store data from there consumers via a cache system. (Alejandre, 2012, p. 83) The Ethical issue surrounding this court case was that Google had copied an entire website to their cache and was eventually reproduced by Google to eventually have more control of the website but did not intend to assume authorship of the website. (Alejandre, 2012, p. 84) So, the legal rights to each of these parties were recognized in this instance in the Spanish Supreme Court and ruled that the decisions made by Google were ethical and were using the information gathered appropriately. Another issue that has occurred with Google is “Search Engine Liability” which is what would help protect consumers and help steer decisions made by Google to use information collected to be more ethical. (Mitchell-Rekrut, 2015, p. 863) What the search engine liability court case had brought to the attention of Google and the decisions they make about what search results pop up for certain things and the accuracy of the search result. As an inaccurate search result could be the difference in a person’s livelihood and affect how they are perceived to the public. (Mitchell-Rekrut, 2015, p. 866) So, in totality the business decisions made that determine the ethical use of information can have legal ramifications against Google when thinking of things that could affect consumer’s livelihood and perception of certain aspects of a person’s everyday life.

References Alejandre, G. M. (2012). Google cache is legal in Spain - Spanish Supreme Court, 3 April 2012, The Megakini.com v Google Spain case. Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, 81-89. Mitchell-Rekrut, C. (2015). Search engine liability under the LIBE data regulation proposal: interpreting third party responsibilities as informed by Google Spain. Georgetown Journal of International Law, 861-891. Pattaro, E. (2009). Law, Brain, and Society. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 99-109. Randeria, S. (2007). The State of Globalization: Legal Plurality, Overlapping Sovereignties and Ambiguous Alliances between Civil Society and the Cunning State in India. Theory, Culture & Society , 1-33.