Online Memory: What Is Out There?
July 6, 2018
Facebook is an excellent company for most people. However, there are a handful of people who struggle to accept Facebook’s approach to reality. What happens when a chunk of digital memory becomes almost permanent?
The aftermath of the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” law that allows people to petition search engines and other data aggregators to delete search results on them permanently removed. While some believe this infringes on various forms of free speech, others believe this is a way for crime victims to reclaim their lives. Quartz shares how Google and Facebook are not the only Web companies being petitioned in the article, “Meet Profile Engine, The ‘Spammy’ Facebook Crawler Hated By People Who Want To Be Forgotten.”
According to the article, Google had the most Facebook results removed from its search engine, while the second most Web site to be requested to delete results is Profile Engine. Profile Engine started in 2007 and allows users to track down people on social network. It used to be a Facebook search engine, but the Profile Engine declared that Facebook was “spammy” and did not make truthful statements. Interesting assertion.
Profile Engine and Facebook had an argument, which resulted in a court battle. The two companies split, but Facebook is contractually obligated to keep feeding Profile Engine results. Facebook does not do this. In the meantime, Profile Engine stopped updated content around 2011. Facebook is not the only one that finds the Profile Engine interesting. There are many posts online about how to remove yourself from Profile Engine.
“Profile Engine is perhaps the worst of its kind, but not the only one that people across Europe are trying to expunge themselves from. Badoo, a London-based social network for meeting new people, had 2,206 results removed. Yasni—”News, pictures & links for any person. Find anyone on the internet with the world’s largest free people search”—had almost 3,000 results suppressed through its French and German subsidiaries. In other words, this battle of ownership of personal data is not going away anytime soon.”
Profile Engine was donated to the Internet Archive, so now all the results are located there. Effort may be needed to get information removed from the Internet Archive. It takes time and patience for Google to forget. Facebook type content may be almost permanent as well.
Whitney Grace, July 6, 2018
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