There is a specter haunting the European Union (EU): the spectrum oblivion. A set of regulations adopted by the EU in recent years, guarantees citizens the right to be forgotten, promising the ability to clean the disk online bad decisions. The law was recently confirmed in the EU's highest court, noting that it may be here to stay. On the surface, the law seems to be the dream of a defender of privacy; However, once the surface is scratched, deeper concerns become apparent.
What?
The right to be forgotten (or RTBF) is a legal construction of the European Union. In 1995, the EU wrote their digital privacy standards, the directive on the protection of European data, highlighting the rights of European citizens that relate to the growing body of digital information collected about them.
This act, which enshrines the role of the EU supervisory authority in regulating privacy in keeping records, forms the basis for the growth of the RTBF as a guiding principle. So what placed the 19-year-old set of regulations if suddenly at the forefront of the movement for privacy?
Google, González, and good intentions
The case of Google v González, involving a Spanish national seeking the deletion of references to legal proceedings against him since the search engine went before the EU Court of justice in May 2014. the judges found in favor of a broad interpretation of the law RTBF. In addition, they placed the burden to eliminate information not with the host site, but with the indexing of search engines it; Google would be required to block access to legitimate request.
In the wake of the decision, the Rtbf lawyers are singing, the opposition struggles, and Google is actively sorting his new backlog of withdrawal requests.
Is free speech a number?
opponents at the request of European system violates the right to freedom of expression from the search engines and content providers affected. But is it? Getting to the core of this issue is to ask hard questions about the right to privacy given to corporations :. Its extent and its limits
In general, international courts (particularly the US) have always found that a legal person has rights under the law similar to those of a human citizen. Cases have found that companies have the right to privacy, speech, and even, in some cases, the free practice of religion.
rights as a general concept is something that is easy to get behind. However, the problem with the messy real world is that these rights are often in conflict with each other. Thus, laws are needed to sort out what rights are given priority in a given situation. That said, the House of Lords said that the law is "wrong in principle and unworkable in practice."
You sold
This becomes especially important when considering a common role of information businesses. services such as Google and Facebook offer 'free' functionality to users in exchange for the ability to compile salable, useful information a precious commodity in a targeted marketing era. Results research, while not directly a part of this business model, drive the basic user to the supplier, without the ability to index the web, Google is nothing but a set of smart logos
simply. Google offers access to content generated by others, and in turn, built detailed information about its user base. Although the laws do Rtbf do anything to stop storing data to Google, they would return to some degree of control on research to topics of these surveys, cutting the reach of search engines into our lives. This is a remedy sought by those affected by some malicious Internet practices, such as victims of alleged websites "revenge porn", which often lacked legal recourse. There is also something to appeal to the common complaint that the Internet is actually the beginning of the end when it comes to privacy. In addition, it is entirely appropriate within the existing legal structures, which have long regulated products made by business interests on the basis of social welfare.
The freedom of criticism?
So far we have discussed the right to be forgotten and freedom of expression in reference to the right of a company to present information, and the confrontation between the rights of the individual and the rights of a company. Turning to another potential problem :. Use of Right to oblivion Internet search principles of unflattering press
Take the case of Robert Peston, who wrote a blog post on Merrill Lynch during the sub-prime fiasco in late 00. Seven years later, Google notified Peston that the accessibility of his article was to be reduced by RTBF request. Initially, Peston assumed that the culprit was former honcho Lynch Stan O'Neal, the subject of the article. In response, Peston questioned the survivability of press freedom as a result of this new legal construction. Peston initial assumptions proved wrong, however; it appears that the article was actually pronounced due to intervening himself or wanting to hide.
Error or prophecy?
It would be easy to dismiss the concerns of Peston with the knowledge that he was wrong about the source of the complaint. However, this dismissal misses an important point: The conflict between speech and privacy can have unforeseen losses. The authors of the law Rtbf never intended their right to be used to prevent the registration to reflect the actions of public actors of interest or undermine the freedom of the press to inform the public of vital issues. However, despite the careful language to protect the floor, it is easy to imagine that the law be used in such a way, and critics of the law suggests that the guarantees in the legislation are insufficient.
The delicate balance between the availability of information and the right to privacy is strange in the era of information technology. As stated Jorge Ramos " Our lives are increasingly defined by what we do on our cell phones and computers." It can be difficult to know exactly where to draw the lines between these pulses. While the right to be forgotten reflects an admirable concern to allow individuals the right to manage their digital lives, it also opens a new frontier in spin control, sacrifice on the altar of the private life of public right to be informed. Any implementation of such a law is careful observation, to ensure that the broad rights it grants to prevent abuse.
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