Remove Information - Right to be Forgotten.

foto: reuters

Our free speech on the internet have gotten a new look after the ruling created by European courts, and it will definitly sound very good to those who want old fotos, datas and comments or articles deleted but the reality will be more complex!
I know lots of friends who would wish to take down something off the internet. Party fotos, school fotos. However, the new ruling from the EU´s court of justice upholding the right to be forgotten is like a good news indeed. It´s all about our privacy, identity and ephemerality has raged around the NSA stoffs!

The fact is there are more works to be done in the present situation in the EU. The courts rulling relates to a long running case in 1998 news article about a Spanish man´s home.  At that time it was rulled in favor of public interest but that the links on the internet pointing at the rulling presents privacy infrigements and so the search engine should act - google! The court did not establish an absolute right to vanish - the so called "fair balance" should be sought between the publics right to gain access to data subject, right to privacy and data protection. This created a massiv problem.
Deciding on such a case by case basis will require a huge teams of compliance staff in every tech company and will tie up courts on their limit of each provision for years.
Google was found to be subject to the EU courts decision because it has it has operations in Spain within the union. But what about people searching from US, thats outside the EU?
Privacy is rightly recognised as an important right. But the permanence of the internet is a concerned to all of us.In time new social norms will help! In the meantime social networks and activity are shifting from the permanent to transient showing that technology and culture are alraedy starting to fix the problem.