Earlier this year, European Union’s top court ruled that
individuals in the E.U. have the right to request that search links on Google’s
website tied to that individual could be deleted where the material is deemed “irrelevant
or outdated”. However, these searches
only applied to Europeans domains (i.e. Google.co.uk) and not the U.S. Google
website (Google.com). Under rules drafted by E.U. privacy chiefs, Google will have to change how it applies the right to be
forgotten to its websites beyond the European Union. These guidelines also censure Google for
notifying news outlets about links to websites the search engine has removed–a
process that defeats the original purpose of the May ruling by thrusting individuals seeking privacy back into the media spotlight.
The May ruling of the “right to be forgotten” has been
widely criticized by the U.S., where the country was founded on the basis of free speech, and the U.K. However, after a two-day meeting, data protection
regulators’ new rules will push Google to apply privacy requests from E.U.
residents to its primary U.S. Google.com site.
While the guidelines are not legally binding, national regulators can
use them to pressure Google and take legal steps to comply on a case-by-case
basis.
These guidelines made me think of the speaker we had earlier this semester that was the founder of an online reputation defender service. I have definitely Googled myself and found some links that I wouldn't want to share publicly (i.e. social media accounts.) While it would be nice if there were a ruling by the U.S. court similar to that in the E.U., online reputation service companies would go out of business in a heartbeat. I believe that everyone deserves the right to know what is being featured about yourself on the internet. While an online service can help you push down unwanted articles in an organic search, one can only hope links can permanently be deleted off search in the future.
