Google Still Forced To Remove Information
September 29, 2014
Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, Google is being forced to remove more information on people because they have the “right to be forgotten.” MailOnline reports “A Multi-Millionaire Tory MP, A Drug-Dealing Aristocrat And Josef Fritzl: MailOnline Has Yet More Articles Removed From Google Under Controversial ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Law.” The Daily Mail is a popular British periodical and it has been forced by the European Data Protection Regulation Article 17 to remove articles seen as detrimental to a person.
Google has received over 90,000 removal requests and per order of the law, Google will not list them in search results. MailOnline’s article will still remain on the Internet, but Google will not index them. Even more frustrating is Google will remove an article if a name only appears in a comment section.
“MailOnline publisher Martin Clarke has described the move by the search engine as “the equivalent of going into libraries and burning books you don’t like.’”
Many criminals are abusing the “right to be forgotten” to cover up their crimes and keep a glossy image in the press. People who have made requests to Google, include a drug dealer with ties to Prince William, a failed helpline, a politician who spy on party members, and a man who abused his family. Some of the requests are good, such as a victim of abuse and a man falsely accused of a crime.
Despite the benefits for some people, the “right to be forgotten” is still censorship. It is probably the first move towards scrubbing information in a long line of problems set to come.
Whitney Grace, September 29, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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