Quinn: Is the ‘right to be forgotten’ the end of Googling as we know it?
A new right! I should be happy.
According to the court ruling, people are entitled to shape what is seen about them on the search engine, our collective memory aide.
The ruling won’t affect U.S. Google users, yet it could spur calls here for “right to be forgotten” reforms.
While being able to selectively erase people’s memories has a utopian appeal, I worry about another long-held right, one that isn’t in the U.S. Constitution either — my Right to Google.
Like many people, I feel entitled to find out stuff about people without them controlling the experience.
Googling someone is what we do before and after we meet potential baby sitters, tax preparers, gardeners, mayoral candidates, karate instructors, long-lost friends — in other words, everyone. Often it’s a frivolous pursuit, but it can cough up critical information that can change the course of lives.
There are many search engines. Beyond setting a precedent, how does the European court demands on Google searches effect search results using other search engines?
The ruling didn’t just affect Google, it is being interpreted to apply to all search engines and social networking sites. It’s a tough call. There should be a way for individuals to remove negative info but not for criminals to hide arrest records and details. If someone has had their record expunged by a court, then that person has a right to request his information be removed from search indexes. But where public safety is concerned, such as sex offenders, there’s no doubt that the court was wrong.
I’m sure this ruling will be reviewed and modified as lawmakers take on the task of deciding what laws apply and what laws need to be written. But you know, the more laws they write, the less freedom we have. It’s really a tough call — not a simple one-size-fits-all solution.
I believe that the Courts (here in Canada at least) should not allow that anyone put on articles or other on any private Facebook. I have discontinued using Facebook (you cannot unsubscribe from Facebook) because it seems that every time I opened it there were articles or other that had nothing to do with me or my family, etc… although I explicitly locked my Facebook views of who could download etc.
TC : there are so many laws on the books now that it would take several teams of lawyers to read them all, many lawyers . and who could understand them other than the ones who wrote them. We have been lawed to death . Many of these laws deal with morality and you can not legislate morals period. We need to dry clean and then burn a lot of these laws and maybe start over and make some good laws so to speak pull up the weeds out of the garden of law, Of course I don’t know where to start because I am not a lawyer but I do see some of these laws that are not needed because the past law would cover that so well. If you kill someone you have to hate them and to have just some that are protected more than others makes no sense. double a life sentence kill them three times how much more can one be punished before the crime has been paid for??