Prof Jeffrey Rosen, writing in the Stanford Law Review, claims that proposals from Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding “could transform Google, for example, into a censor-in-chief for the European Union, rather than a neutral platform”. He said that rather than perform such a role, the search giant was more likely to simply produce blank pages for certain search results.
The current European proposals seek to harmonise laws across the 27 EU nations and will force sites to delete information shortly after consumers request it be removed. If they do not comply, a fine of up to two per cent of a firm’s global turnover could follow.
Matthew Newman, Reding’s spokesman, told the Telegraph it simply aggregates existing rights to get data deleted from servers in a “timely manner”. But he says it also means individual EU information commissioners could arbitrate when, say, a user posts a controversial picture online of someone else and refuses to take it down when the subject asks.
Reding herself insists: “The right to be forgotten has nothing to do with journalists, nothing to do with the work of bloggers, nothing to do with tweeters – it’s about when you entrust information to a company. Because freedom of expression is very important we have also to take this into account.”
Prof Rosen argues that the fear of fines will have a chilling effect, and that it will be hard to enforce across the internet when information is widely disseminated. Read on and comment » | Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor | Tuesday, February 14, 2012
