5 ms·

While there certainly is room to improve privacy legislation, it must be done carefully. More legislation is not always better. For example, I'm strongly agains

While there certainly is room to improve privacy legislation, it must be done carefully. More legislation is not always better. For example, I'm strongly against forcing search engines to remove entries based on a single person's 'right to forget.'

rhizome 9y ago
Then let's talk about how careful. "Right to forget" premises data ownership by the person, with which you apparently disagree. So, if people should not have complete control over data about themselves, where should the line be drawn on the usage of that data when people can't tell companies what to do with it? Who should draw that line?
- bskap 9y ago
  Except even in Europe, there isn't really a "right to be forgotten". Your "right to be forgotten" doesn't mean you can make a newspaper to take down a factually accurate article about you, just to force a search engine to stop linking to that factually accurate article. They didn't give anyone control of the data about themselves, just the right to make it harder to find.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Yea, i found this pretty odd from the beginning. It's like allowing a business to operate and cracking down on accurate street signs.
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  You seem incredulous that anyone can have a good faith argument against the "right to be forgotten." One person's right to be forgotten conflicts with the public's interest in knowing things. For example, if a given doctor has botched several surgeries, and I am considering to become his patient, the doctor's right to have those incidents forgotten conflicts with my interest in knowing his track record. This is one example, but such cases are myriad. Of course the laws surrounding the right to be forgotten in Europe are not boundless (though they are, to my mind, quite vague) and I'm sure supporters will be quick to point out the the case of the doctor above may not be covered by the right to be forgotten. And that is a nice point in theory, but in practice is moot. Europe has put the burden of correctly determining what is in the public interest squarely on the shoulders of online aggregators. If an aggregator's interpretation of a broad set of laws is later found to not be in keeping with the opinion of European courts, the aggregators are the ones that will be footing the fines. Forcing search engines to all become court systems which adjudicate millions of cases is extremely onerous. Companies are not going to spend billions doing that. They are just going to remove whatever requests they get, DMCA style. The end result is that Europe has given everyone a more or less unrestricted delete button. Google has already delisted more than a million URLs (including for a doctor that botched several surgeries). Further, until the the whole world gets on board, I imagine there will always be access to search engines that do not delist results. So not only are companies forced to rubber stamp millions of delist requests, it's also completely pointless! Personally, if society believes the right to be forgotten is worth enshrining, instead of shirking responsibility of actually enforcing it onto tech giants, we should have the courts adjudicate the requests so that the public interest will be appropriately weighed. Of course this will be much more expensive, but like health, education, and so on, doing the right thing is often expensive.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    We agree, but it's a hard question that's going to keep coming up. Not from a standpoint of morals, but of privacy.

rhizome 9y ago

Then let's talk about how careful. "Right to forget" premises data ownership by the person, with which you apparently disagree. So, if people should not have complete control over data about themselves, where should the line be drawn on the usage of that data when people can't tell companies what to do with it? Who should draw that line?

bskap 9y ago
Except even in Europe, there isn't really a "right to be forgotten". Your "right to be forgotten" doesn't mean you can make a newspaper to take down a factually accurate article about you, just to force a search engine to stop linking to that factually accurate article. They didn't give anyone control of the data about themselves, just the right to make it harder to find.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  Yea, i found this pretty odd from the beginning. It's like allowing a business to operate and cracking down on accurate street signs.
jaredklewis 9y ago
You seem incredulous that anyone can have a good faith argument against the "right to be forgotten." One person's right to be forgotten conflicts with the public's interest in knowing things. For example, if a given doctor has botched several surgeries, and I am considering to become his patient, the doctor's right to have those incidents forgotten conflicts with my interest in knowing his track record. This is one example, but such cases are myriad. Of course the laws surrounding the right to be forgotten in Europe are not boundless (though they are, to my mind, quite vague) and I'm sure supporters will be quick to point out the the case of the doctor above may not be covered by the right to be forgotten. And that is a nice point in theory, but in practice is moot. Europe has put the burden of correctly determining what is in the public interest squarely on the shoulders of online aggregators. If an aggregator's interpretation of a broad set of laws is later found to not be in keeping with the opinion of European courts, the aggregators are the ones that will be footing the fines. Forcing search engines to all become court systems which adjudicate millions of cases is extremely onerous. Companies are not going to spend billions doing that. They are just going to remove whatever requests they get, DMCA style. The end result is that Europe has given everyone a more or less unrestricted delete button. Google has already delisted more than a million URLs (including for a doctor that botched several surgeries). Further, until the the whole world gets on board, I imagine there will always be access to search engines that do not delist results. So not only are companies forced to rubber stamp millions of delist requests, it's also completely pointless! Personally, if society believes the right to be forgotten is worth enshrining, instead of shirking responsibility of actually enforcing it onto tech giants, we should have the courts adjudicate the requests so that the public interest will be appropriately weighed. Of course this will be much more expensive, but like health, education, and so on, doing the right thing is often expensive.
- rhizome 9y ago
  We agree, but it's a hard question that's going to keep coming up. Not from a standpoint of morals, but of privacy.