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What always baffles me about the right to be forgotten is that the issue never is if something should truly be forgotten - it should not, it will stay on record

What always baffles me about the right to be forgotten is that the issue never is if something should truly be forgotten - it should not, it will stay on record, in news articles etc. - but always if the offending piece of information should be removed from search engine indexes. I find this really troubling, because just making it harder to find does not remove it and shifts power to persons who can make better use of search/indexing tools or have the means to hire someone who does.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's a reasonable, but imperfect analogue for the old obscurity by sheer quantity. If you are a regular employee seeking a new job, it shields from idle searches turfing up minor offences from years or decades ago. Europe seems to embrace the possibility of rehabilitation, and I think it's fair that shoplifting or a suspended sentence eventually goes away. In this context, plenty of roles would be exempt from the expiry, e.g. joining the police, or working in the legal system, among many others. Neither case will prevent some major politician, business leader or celeb being investigated if they come under enough of a cloud. Lack of search just makes it a little less trivial. If your journalist really thinks there is history to be found you send an intern or three to trawl through 30 years of press archives at the local reference library. How it used to be done. To me, that seems a reasonable balance and sensibly protective of the general population being discriminated against for having done something minor and daft 25 years ago.
- LeanderK 7y ago
  I agree. I does not remove the information, it just makes it harder to find. If google in the future truly lives up to it's ideal and gives me exactly the information I was looking for, then removing the information from the index would enable one to rehabilitate and not be discriminated against afterwards.
- Grumbledour 7y ago
  It just seems like a sloppy solution to do this at search engine level, especially when most of these search engines are outside of european jurisdiction. I think it would be much more sensible to require the actual sources to anonymize their online content after a certain time or just whenever something like this goes to court instead of having private companies keep registers of "forbidden" links.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Hmm, given just about everything is found via search, that seems a reasonable place. Your alternative might have someone needing to request forgetting from dozens or hundreds of sources all over the place.
    - Grumbledour 7y ago
      But there isn't just one search engine and you will still have to submit all the urls of these possible hundreds of places to all of them so they can be blocked. It is a really hard or maybe impossible problem to de publicize something on the internet. Though I do think clear laws with due process would work much better then using middlemen like the search engine providers to police on their own merit.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It's a reasonable, but imperfect analogue for the old obscurity by sheer quantity. If you are a regular employee seeking a new job, it shields from idle searches turfing up minor offences from years or decades ago. Europe seems to embrace the possibility of rehabilitation, and I think it's fair that shoplifting or a suspended sentence eventually goes away. In this context, plenty of roles would be exempt from the expiry, e.g. joining the police, or working in the legal system, among many others. Neither case will prevent some major politician, business leader or celeb being investigated if they come under enough of a cloud. Lack of search just makes it a little less trivial. If your journalist really thinks there is history to be found you send an intern or three to trawl through 30 years of press archives at the local reference library. How it used to be done. To me, that seems a reasonable balance and sensibly protective of the general population being discriminated against for having done something minor and daft 25 years ago.

LeanderK 7y ago
I agree. I does not remove the information, it just makes it harder to find. If google in the future truly lives up to it's ideal and gives me exactly the information I was looking for, then removing the information from the index would enable one to rehabilitate and not be discriminated against afterwards.
Grumbledour 7y ago
It just seems like a sloppy solution to do this at search engine level, especially when most of these search engines are outside of european jurisdiction. I think it would be much more sensible to require the actual sources to anonymize their online content after a certain time or just whenever something like this goes to court instead of having private companies keep registers of "forbidden" links.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Hmm, given just about everything is found via search, that seems a reasonable place. Your alternative might have someone needing to request forgetting from dozens or hundreds of sources all over the place.
  - Grumbledour 7y ago
    But there isn't just one search engine and you will still have to submit all the urls of these possible hundreds of places to all of them so they can be blocked. It is a really hard or maybe impossible problem to de publicize something on the internet. Though I do think clear laws with due process would work much better then using middlemen like the search engine providers to police on their own merit.