Althouse: The right to be forgotten.

February 14, 2012

The right to be forgotten.

A new privacy right. From Europe.

21 comments:

Bob Ellison said...: This isn't asking too much. FaceBook already fiercely protects the Right to Be Boring and the Right to Be Forgettable.; 2/14/12, 7:46 AM
rhhardin said...: There used to be an American idea that you could always move out west and start over, in case you screwed up too badly.

That pretty much ended with social security numbers as identification.

It's not the internet doing it; in fact the internet wouldn't track you since you'd change your name.

Legal name changes would solve the European problem, except of course that they'd record the name change somewhere.; 2/14/12, 8:00 AM
X said...: If your right involves someone else having to do something you desire for free, it's wrong.

I've got a list of chores for anyone who disagrees.; 2/14/12, 8:07 AM
Insufficiently Sensitive said...: Well then, lefties, you've had a fine time employing Saul Alinsky's Rule 13 against the Koch Brothers. No one had heard of them until you decided to make them useful demons in your battle against democracy in Wisconsin.

Would you approve of them exercising their newly-found European right to oblivion, by blanking out every one of your vicious rants containing their family name?; 2/14/12, 8:07 AM
Insufficiently Sensitive said...: That pretty much ended with social security numbers as identification.

Remember that the F.D. Roosevelt administration (the pioneering model for nearly all of Obama's tyrannical tactics against the Constititution) promised that SSNs would NEVER be used as ID registrations?; 2/14/12, 8:12 AM
chickelit said...: The French are on the wrong side of history on this one.; 2/14/12, 8:28 AM
Cornroaster said...: Will certain Supreme Court justices embrace this new "right" from Europe in a further attempt to subvert our Constitution?; 2/14/12, 8:34 AM
Matt Sablan said...: "Remember that the F.D. Roosevelt administration (the pioneering model for nearly all of Obama's tyrannical tactics against the Constititution) promised that SSNs would NEVER be used as ID registrations?"

Think my card still has printed on it: "Not to be used as an ID" or something like that.; 2/14/12, 8:37 AM
Peter said...: Predictable blogospheric response: it's all irrelevant because Eurabia is soon to be taken over by the towel heads.; 2/14/12, 8:42 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Wow; this went to comic commentary on American politics fast.

The "right" mentioned is interesting. Most "rights" involve prohibitions of interference with individuals, like the first amendment prohibiting the government from censoring speech. This right to be forgotten, like the French "right of oblivion" to which the article refers, is not a prohibition, but a requisition: others are compelled to act on behalf of the individual.

Wait, I know! We can make this an American political thing by tying it to Obama's requisition that Catholics pay for birth control!; 2/14/12, 8:51 AM
ricpic said...: There used to be an American idea that you could always move out west and start over, in case you screwed up too badly.

This idea still pretty much holds up in that there is a gentleman's agreement (the farther west the stronger it gets) that I won't look into your second or third reinvention if you don't look into mine.; 2/14/12, 9:11 AM
wyo sis said...: We need to get over the notion that things we'd like to have are rights.; 2/14/12, 9:38 AM
Anonymous said...: Eventually, 99.9999% of us will be forgotten whether we want to be or not. The other .0001% will not be forgotten, whether they want to be or not.; 2/14/12, 9:48 AM
edutcher said...: An old Euro tradition from the 20th Century.

Adolf, Uncle Joe, Benito all tried to make the world forget a lot of people.; 2/14/12, 10:05 AM
Joe said...: They do have a point. I've been on web sites that don't let you cancel your membership. My last solution was to change all my personal data to something completely absurd and obscene.

Requiring a site to go beyond that, it's unrealistic.

(Incidentally, this holds true of the LDS church. You can't actually quit and have your records destroyed. They just flip a bit that says you're no longer a member. I find that irritating.)

Oh, and have you ever tried to get removed from a political mailing list? They're the worse.; 2/14/12, 10:48 AM
Paul Brinkley said...: Bob Ellison almost won the thread for me... until I read wyo sis.

For me, this reminds me of that Dilbert cartoon where PHB decides he will motivate programmers by paying bonuses for bug fixes. Wally immediately proclaims he's going to bug fix himself a Winnebago over the weekend.

This commissioner really, really fails to understand game theory and incentives. Hopefully others will talk her down from her position or at least flat out overrule her. The article's assessment of the reaction of the press there, however, does not reassure me.

This is why I can't trust governments...; 2/14/12, 11:03 AM
Paul Brinkley said...: See, Joe sorta gets it. Being removed from a list is not a right, but it is something you can get done with a little sweat and cleverness.

That said, that web site could stick to its guns and keep your obscene profile, not to mention save a copy of your original. The trick is not to declare you have the right to make them remove it, but rather to make it worth their while.; 2/14/12, 11:10 AM
cubanbob said...: The French for a change have a good idea. Consider your personal information as your personal property or intellectual property, sort of like a copyright. You should be able to withdraw your consent of use unless you have a contractual use agreement.; 2/14/12, 12:50 PM
Paul Brinkley said...: cubanbob, suppose I stole your wallet and then ran away. Could I then invoke the right to be forgotten? Should I be able to?

Suppose I didn't commit any actual crime, but I talked about it. Could I invoke the right to be forgotten? Should I be able to?

I know what you're probably thinking. You're not worried about information about me that indicates I might commit a crime; you're worried about relatively innocuous information - where I live, where I work, what I like to eat, what illnesses I've had in the past, etc. My question is: is there any distinction to be drawn between information that indicates one and not the other, and information that indicates the other and not the one? If so, how can you tell?; 2/14/12, 1:09 PM
Revenant said...: Consider your personal information as your personal property or intellectual property, sort of like a copyright.

Personal property ceases to be personal property when you give it away to someone else. If you want to claim that, for example, your address is "personal property", never give out your address. If you DO give out your address, the new copies of that bit of information acquire new owners, who can then give it away again.; 2/14/12, 6:02 PM
G Joubert said...: There's no question but that with the Internet, and particularly including Google, we have a new and different world, and a new variation on social Darwinism has emerged.; 2/14/12, 9:49 PM