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Privacy Google The Internet United Kingdom Your Rights Online

UK Privacy Watchdog: 'Right To Be Forgotten' On the Web Unworkable 134

Posted by Soulskill from the ways-in-which-the-internet-is-like-an-elephant dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Want to be invisible to Google? Apparently you can't, at least according to the European Commission and Information Commissioner's Office. '"The right to be forgotten worries us as it makes people expect too much," said [deputy commissioner David Smith]. Instead, Smith said the focus should be on the "right to object" to how personal data is used, as this places the onus on businesses to justify the collection and processing of citizens' data. "It is a reversal of the burden of proof system used in the existing process. It will strengthen the person's position but it won't stop people processing their data." EC data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx added the right to be forgotten is currently unworkable as most countries are divided on what qualifies as sensitive personal data. "I believe the right to be forgotten is an overstatement," said Hustinx."
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UK Privacy Watchdog: 'Right To Be Forgotten' On the Web Unworkable More

UK Privacy Watchdog: 'Right To Be Forgotten' On the Web Unworkable

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  • The world is really small now. (Score:3)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:22PM (#43284873)

    That is the problem. Back in them good old days, You can make a ass out of yourself, and only a few people or perhaps the town know. But after you left the town you had a clean slate.

    Now today with Google and Facebook, are assitry is now shared across the globe and will stay embedded in peoples mines for a long time. Oh wait weren't you the Star Wars Kid, or that Girl who didn't know where Canada was.

    • Bu that information is irrelevant with time and newer pop culture examples.
      If either of those people sat in front of you for an interview would you recognize them?

      Also, people are finely starting to realize that everyone is an ass from time to time so it doesn't really matter.

      • Re:The world is really small now. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by postbigbang ( 761081 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @05:05PM (#43285397)

        And that makes permanent data storage better? So that we don't eventually extort each other into oblivion? It's better to mandate public opt-in data life.

        Everyone is human. Do we need the evidence to drag out decades from now about your indiscretion in Gresham?

        • Re:The world is really small now. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by poetmatt ( 793785 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @05:08PM (#43285435) Journal

          everything should be opt-in as far as your data is concerned.
          The big question is: why isn't it?

          forget MS, google. Forget every analytics company. This should be across the board, and they should not be able to refuse you access if you don't opt in.

          • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 )

            everything should be opt-in as far as your data is concerned.
            The big question is: why isn't it?

            Devil's Advocate:

            Hey, nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to put your personal information on the internet. Sounds like you "opted in" to me.

            forget MS, google. Forget every analytics company. This should be across the board

            Again, nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to give personal information to MS and Google. You gave that info willingly by accessing their systems.

            /Devil's Advocate

            Personally, I agree with the idea that "opt-in" should be explicit, rather than implicit. Merely accessing a website should not be an open invitation for the owner of that websit

            • First three pages of Googling my name shows nothing about me; though it does show something about "write a prisoner" who has the same name as me. Hmmmm, maybe I should make myself more visible on Google actually.

            • I don't think you understand the implication of what I'm saying. Why should you for example:

              have to agree to a EULA which requires the software distributor to be able to sell your information, in order to use their service? Are you going to tell me that you somehow can't run the service without that EULA? What if it's a paid service?

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            The big question is: why isn't it?

            Well, in a real way, it is. They can only harvest the data you give them. If your computer volunteers information about you to a 3rd party, that party can record that data. Information wants to be free and all that.

            Now, I fully agree that this is becoming more and more difficult to do. But there was a time when all this data-harvesting shit started. We could all have stopped it in its tracks by refusing to hand over our data. But you know what? We didn't do that. Not only didn't we, but we went out

            • We decided that privacy as here defined was not really so important and that there were positive benefits to giving out personal information. The issue really is not that the information can be collected, aggregated and analysed, the issue is what is done with it. That is where the state comes in to play.

              The only privacy you are entitled to is what takes place within four walls.

      • Re:The world is really small now. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mabhatter654 ( 561290 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @05:13PM (#43285479)

        "If either of those people sat in front of you for an interview would you recognize them?"

        Google Glasses will. THAT is expressly the point. 10 years from now nobody cares... Except all these services are gathering this stuff SPECIFICALLY to shove it back in your face. "You know, this one time, in band camp.."

        A better example will be when credit reports NEVER EXPIRE. I mean you can get a legal bankruptcy, but all they have to do is leave the report out there on Google for it to pick right back up... It's not a "legal" credit report... But it's not YOUR DATA so they don't care and your potential employer sees it anyway.

        Many fors of discrimination are going to be right back in vogue when employers can pre-filter you through Facebook for religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity... That's basically what these companies are selling..

    • assitry is now shared across the globe and will stay embedded in peoples mines for a long time.

      Or at least until somebody digs it up.

    • Now everyone on /. knows forever how well you do English grammar and spelling.

    • Mmmm. I'm not sure that not being able to hide your past assholery is a bad thing.

      Though I object to businesses harvesting my personal information without my knowledge and consent ( per case ), and I volentairly put very little personal information on the internet.

  • the right to be lobbied (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What about the EU right to be lobbied? I am seriously worried that the EU might make a decision based on the will of the people rather than the Council and Commission as entirely owned by big business, or the Parliament which in theory directly represents the people but in practice is easy to influence.

  • Right to alternicks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rwa2 ( 4391 ) * on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:27PM (#43284933) Homepage Journal

    I'm more worried about the crackdown on using alternate identities online. My friends know who I am, but no one else should be able to pull up dirt on me based on random dirt they find associated with my name.

    At the same time, if there's an actual crime being investigated, it's takes some pretty trivial sleuthing to trace back an alternate id to a person, but takes some effort just out of reach for a telemarketer or employer or griefer, and could require an approval process and leave a paper trail back to the requester.

    So I'm sort of upset that GooTube / Facebook push for realname ids. But for the most part they let you get away with using your alternicks... for now. But that's the right we need to fight to preserve.

    • So I'm sort of upset that GooTube / Facebook push for realname ids. But for the most part they let you get away with using your alternicks... for now. But that's the right we need to fight to preserve.

      That's why I have a "novelty" ID with the name "Fakename McGee" on it. If a company says that's not my real name, I just send `em a scan of the novelty ID.

      "I'm sorry, Mr. McGee, I..."

      "It's all right, I get that a lot."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      My concern is that California wouldn't renew my license because some unrelated person with my same name had unpaid tickets in Florida, which I hadn't been in during the time of the events. And they didn't even send me anything I could respond to. They just kept my money and did nothing.

      • My concern is that California...

        Well, hell, there's your problem!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Get's better when you realize that there are cross-border agreements between the US and Canada, and there have been incidents on both sides of cities and counties scamming up fake tickets.

    • dossiers = temptation = (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Assembling dossiers on literally everyone is just asking for it to be abused by governments and criminal organizations.

      • There is nothing new about assembling dossiers on everyone. The thing now is that it has become easier to assemble, sift and share data. There are files on you somewhere.

  • How hard could it freaking be (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    All you need is a damn regex for your data and you're done. What BS are they feeding these guys?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DaHat ( 247651 )

      All you need is a damn regex for your data and you're done. What BS are they feeding these guys?

      I agree fully <insert your real screen name here>, but have you considered the fact that even if your regex wiped out your post above (assuming you posted it with a real name), that your regex should not modify my reply which very well may contain not just your post... but additional information? Why should your right to be forgotten override my right to speak?

      • Who says it does?

        If the regex nukes only his own posts, and any quoted portions of his posts, replacing it with "User has exercised his or her right to be forgotten. This post deleted." Over and over again, doe NOT remove "your" side of an argument, on whatever service or forum you post on. Your quotes will just end up looking silly, and you will just end up looking like a douche.

        Nothing would prevent you from keeping your own personal version of the dialog for personal posterity, but your redistributing i

  • unworkable? care to elaborate, corporate world? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:32PM (#43284997)

    Let's see here. We have the EU defining a legal civil right. The corporate world says "oh noez! We can't do that! Our business model is BASED around violating that civil right! We totally can't just delete all that precious and lucrative data just because some prudes don't want to be included!"

    If we adapt this, and replace some other legally recognized civil right, like say-- the right to the sanctity of one's own body, the absurdity of this attestment becomes painfully clear.

    "Oh noez! We can't do that, our business model is BASED on forcing prepubescent children to perform sexual services without getting any permission of compensation! We can't just let those very lucrative child prostitutes go just because some prudes don't want to take diseased cock all day! We make our money selling child prostitution services! These so called "rights" are completely unworkable! How can we sell reliable prostitution services if we can't force people to be whores for us!?"

    Seriously. That's what I see when I see these kinds of arguments. If your business mode revolves round violating other people's rights, then you DON'T have any right to perform that line of business. The fact that it is "unworkable" is fucking INTENTIONAL.

    • It's impossible to remove everything about you from the internet. Impossible. Google dis one of the best at getting rid of your data, but they can't get rid of my data; which might be about you.

      And so on. No man is an island.

      Strong regulations of what they can do is the best way to protect citizens

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Dear American companies, fuck off elsewhere if you can't honour the laws of the land where you conduct business. Simple really.

      • Re:unworkable? care to elaborate, corporate world? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:58PM (#43285303)

        I agree, just like it is illegal for me to set up a camera in your bathroom and then sell the pictures of you in the shower.

        That is basically what the internet is right now, a big public bath house where people can see all the naughty bits.

        There is money to be made by taking pictures and selling them. (That's basically what collecting personal information without permission and selling it as a bulk aggregate is. "Anonymizing" the picture by not affixing a name, and shuffling it in with hundreds of others doesn't stop you from taking the picture and selling it. Making the photography illegal, and enforcing it, makes people who peddle such wares either criminal, or highly regulated and on the up and up. Much like the legitimate porn industry, vs 3rd world sex slave racketeers.)

        The comparison isn't hard. Getting people to feel violated by being the equivalent of an ameture porn star for taking a shower, but because their data was exposed and whored out IS hard.

        These weasly tactics, like saying "it gives people a false impression [of safety]" are just horseshit. Just apply the same rhetoric toward rape, and see the absurdity.

        Its like saing "if you don't want to get raped, don't walk on the sidewalk at night."

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, it's like you taking pictures of yourself naked, posting them all over town, and then telling people to forget they saw it and any copies they made. Actually it's not like that, it is that. You're literally spraying data all over the internet and then asking people to pretend it never happened. The EU defining that as your right is not only unenforceable it's blatantly wrong for the EU to claim sovereignty over collecting history and say that what you said and did should be officially stricken from the

        • All that is fine and true (except I'd say the closer analogy is if you set up a camera in your bathroom and then I showered in it, in which case it would still be illegal to sell the pictures I think), and I like the idea of knowing that my online presence could be erased, but from a developer's standpoint, it really isn't feasible. Sure, people want to have privacy, and corporations want to hold onto every bit of information they can, but the developers in the middle realize that both are a little absurd.

          • Re:unworkable? care to elaborate, corporate world? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @06:38PM (#43286309)

            How is it impossible, other than it happens to be a conflict of interest for you?

            Much like people provide records to medical institutions because it is necessary to get quality healthcare, people provide online merchants their address, telephone, and credit card numbers to make purchases and get deliveries. Nowhere in the tranaction is there even so much as a checkbox that says "yes, remember this purchase so you can suggest simular items, and share this purchase experience with other merchants." Instead, the push is to consider this "just a given! Our customers WANT this! Nevermind the sounds of the angry mob outside, that's just your imagination."

            Technologically I don't see how this is hard either. Keeping the data for law enforcement subpoenas for a limited time, and pretending it doesn't exist is a far cry from embedding spybugs in your fucking checkout page so that the "user experience" extends to other site visits as well.

            The latter is like putting a GPS tracking bug on the pricetags at a shopping center, so you know where else the customer shops that day.

            Yet, that is EXACTLY what ad network tracing cookies do, EXACTLY what that bullshit "facebook button" does, etc.

            I don't want that, I don't want the service, I don't want your ads, I don't want to be profiled, just because I casually look at a news link, etc.

            I am not alone, and the EU seems to agree that you shouldn't presume I have agreed by default.

            That this makes your life harder as a dev is just tough shit.

            • First off, I said "not feasible" and not "impossible". Those are not synonyms. But your comment is a very shallow view of the problem. I understand your concern with the tracking bugs, and I agree with you there (although it's a difficult problem to police what kind of tracking would be allowed and what wouldn't since some is beneficial, but that's a whole other story).

              So let's focus on just one small part of this issue to illustrate why it is difficult. Take your example where you provide credit card

              • For the first issue: tracking location data for purchase metrics:

                There are some recursion issues involved with your example I would like some clarity on. If company X sees a bump in the sales trend for a specific location, then bumps the advertising budget, then the advertising does what it is supposed to do, and increases awareness of product, and inflates more sales for that location. As soon as that happens, measuring sales for the region as the metric for determining where to spend advert money becomes

                • As far as the advertising is concerned, I was just trying to come up with an example of how it might be used. The point wasn't to give a perfect way to advertise, but merely to show that some of that data might be useful. That point still stands, regardless of whether or not my example really works. I do believe that there are people far smarter than myself who would use that information to increase their company's sales, which was the real point.

                  I hear what you're saying, agree with many of your poin

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DaHat ( 247651 )

          Just apply the same rhetoric toward rape, and see the absurdity.

          Actually the absurdity is trying to try to draw any parallel between this and rape.

          Seriously... turn off the PC and take your meds.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by AlphaWolf_HK ( 692722 )

        Well how does one become forgotten IRL?

        Mr. Burns: Smithers, get the amnesia ray.
        Smithers: You mean the revolver, sir?
        Mr. Burns: Yes, and be sure to wipe your mind clear when you're done as well.

        Sure, online you can delete database entries and whatnot...but some of this information isn't even personally identifiable first of all, and second of all, how is the law going to chase down every single database entry in the world?

        France just sued twitter for 50 million because they wouldn't reveal the identities of

      • So one combat method is to pollute your data. I regularly change my names, accounts and other identifying artifacts I use online, and also make a habit of posting conflicting or irregular statements so that any record is unreliable or confusing. Sure it's not fail safe, but it makes any effort to build a reliable picture of me a lot more difficult and costly to anyone interested in such things.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's impossible to remove everything about you from the internet. Impossible. Google dis one of the best at getting rid of your data, but they can't get rid of my data; which might be about you.

        And so on. No man is an island.

        Strong regulations of what they can do is the best way to protect citizens

        Guess what, T-Mobile also think they cannot prevent their system from making "mistakes" and add premium service subscriptions to their subscribers. I guess you are ok with that too?

        Telemarketers would also claim they cannot prevent their system to "mistakenly" call you sometimes, even though you are already in a do-not-call list, I guess such list is also "unworkable" and we should do away with it?

        The double standard in /. when it comes to Google is amazing, whatever Google said/done, there will be /.er ru

      • And so on. No man is an island.

        Except the Isle of Man.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by marnues ( 906739 )
      What civil right do you believe is threatened here? The one where you control Google's data about you? Not a civil right.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 )

        What civil right do you believe is threatened here? The one where you control Google's data about you? Not a civil right.

        I'll simply make my data worthless.

        I am the king of Pittsburgh, I invented the game of Association Football and I possess half the global supply of Gogo's Crazy Bones.

        • What civil right do you believe is threatened here? The one where you control Google's data about you? Not a civil right.

          I'll simply make my data worthless.

          I am Sparticus...

      • Re:unworkable? care to elaborate, corporate world? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @05:06PM (#43285413)

        The civil right here, is the right to be forgotten online, meaning, the right to have your previous history expunged, and also the right to not have data collected without permission.

        It's no different from whipping out a camera, photographing people who didn't sign a model release, and then lucratizing the photos in ways the people photoed don't endorse, just because they happened to be outside, or were wearing a certain brand of clothing.

        Just so you know, the above is fucking illegal as hell, and people DO have legal right to demand the destruction of such imagery. (As far as I know, in bot the EU and the US.)

        This is simply an expansion of the same basic premise, that you have a right to privacy, a right to not be exploited against your wishes, etc.

        Proper enfocement would be to fine the fuck out of companies that refuse to comply, and persist in warehousing data.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DaHat ( 247651 )

          It's no different from whipping out a camera, photographing people who didn't sign a model release, and then lucratizing the photos in ways the people photoed don't endorse, just because they happened to be outside, or were wearing a certain brand of clothing.

          Actually it's quite different... go read the membership agreement at your average dating or social networking site... you tend to give up quite a few rights, including to the use of the photos and content you post.

          Unlike the people walking around in pu

          • I am well aware of such ToS. I don't subscribe to such services. I don't use twitter, I don't use facebook, I don't use G+, I don't use any such service.

            Yet, because OTHER people post information about me on things like their facebook page, my information gets vacuumed up and sold wholesale, just as if I had signed their ToS.

            Requireing the equivalent of a model release for second and third hand data would put a very effective stop to that shit, and would actually make the data collected more valuable, beca

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by DaHat ( 247651 )

              You must be one of those who thinks that privacy is an absolute that no other person may infringe upon unless you explicitly sign away limited access to you.

              Bad news... you do not live in that world, nor have you ever, if you did you would have been outfitted with a cloaking device at birth and every single fact about you in every persons mind or database would be triggered to a self destruct command that you could selectively kick off.

              If you don't want your information being posted to Facebook by "OTHER pe

              • And YOU are making it into a binary argument. "Since you can't effectively control what others do, then you have no say about your data whatsever."

                If this were true, then wirefraud wouldn't be illegal.

                The mere fact that it IS illegal, makes the "ordering 50 pizza's in somebody else's name" reference you just made specious as fuck.

                Likewise, there are laws that at least TRY to restrict the distribution of priviledged data and information against the owners wishes. Or have you had your head up your ass this wh

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by DaHat ( 247651 )

                  Good job miss characterizing what I said, as it's pretty hard to claim that I said anything along the lines of:

                  Since you can't effectively control what others do, then you have no say about your data whatsever.

                  In fact... I put it all on you.

                  While I'm at it... care to point out where I said anything about:

                  ordering 50 pizza's in somebody else's name

                  Or 'pizza' for that matter? That word doesn't even appear in my post.

                  Given your complete inability (or unwillingness) to address what I actually said... I see no r

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

                Okay, but that has nothing to do with the right to be forgotten. It just means that when you delete your Facebook account it really is deleted, along with all the image tags (not the images themselves if they were uploaded by other people), game rankings, marketting data and other crap they collect. No shadow profiles either.

                Others can continue to write about your exploits or post their own photos with you in them.

        • "the right to have your previous history expunged"

          Excuse me. You have no right whatsoever to force me to forget that I just read what you wrote. What kind of fantasy world do you live in?

          I realize that the basement dwellers won't understand this next part but they may have read about these activities so they can use their imaginations.

          You walk down the street and other people see you. You walk into stores and the clerks and other shoppers see you. Whether they want to remember those encounters is up to them

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Xest ( 935314 )

            "Excuse me. You have no right whatsoever to force me to forget that I just read what you wrote. What kind of fantasy world do you live in?"

            But you're not a corporation are you?

            In most countries in the world now there is an implementation of some kind of data protection act, I live in the UK, so I'll stick to what ours says, but this applies at least to everywhere in the EU, and to many other countries beyond.

            In the UK the data protection act states that corporations must have reason to hold on to data about

    • Collecting information about people for the purposes of statistical analysis and especially advertising purposes is one of the core business models of the internet. Facebook, Google, and Yahoo are outright built on top of it. Most media sites are built on it. Outside of direct internet companies, your grocery store, your pharmacy, your bank - they all collect information about you too for various purposes.

      If you take that away, someone has to invent a radical new business model for the internet or els

      • So, your argument, reframed to suit the analogy, is that the child pornographers offer lots of "free" candy and narcotics that people have gotten used to, and without the money flow from selling tight prepubescent ass to perverts, the prices for those products will go up, and people won't be able to afford them.

        Forgive me when I say that very little of real value will be lost.

        • Internet search, social networks, news, Yahoo Local, Google Maps, banks, and discounts on groceries and other retail purchases, etc... are a little more valuable to consumers than candy and narcotics.

          It's a little hypocritical, don't you think, for you to call ad-funded business offerings something like candy and narcotics offered by pedophiles when you're making that point on a news site and discussusion board funded by advertising. Enjoy your candy.

          • I visit slashdot enough to pay a few bucks a month to post. So no, not a hipocrite.

            Doubly so if I was garanteed not to get served ads and tracking cookies. (Which I already don't get, because I have good karma.)

            I would happily pay for the candy, and if the cost was too high, would happily abstain. I do that with television already. Not a problem for me.

            And no, shoppers cards aren't worth it. Gas cards aren't worth it. Etc.

            • For me, the local grocery stores with shopper's cards charge 30% more for people without the cards. The card gets you the price you would expect to pay normally, and without it you're paying $5.00 (instead of $3.45) for a gallon of milk or $2.25 (instead of $1.50) for a loaf of bread, and so forth. It's only not worth the hassle if you can afford the difference. Walmart doesn't use a membership program, but dealing with them has separate ethical problems. Aldi doesn't use a membership program, but I do

          • (Also just to note: bank and loan services have existed comfortably for centuries without reselling account information. They don't actually NEED that revinue stream, except to sate either their own greed, or someone else's greed. (Like shareholders, etc.))

            Internet search can realistically be funded without adverts, since they can operate like an advert company themselves. The assertion that the service would be prohibitively expensive for ordinary users is unsubstantiated.

            Social networking does not need ce

            • You are right that banks and local news and so forth got by for years with less user tracking than they have now. I just think getting them to give it up is about as useful as tilting at windmills. I'm operating under the assumption that we can't trust these businesses to stop collecting data no matter what the law says, and it's our responsibility (we in the technology community) to devise ways to live a connected life while maintaining privacy in a way that prevents them from snooping whether they wis

    • Let's see here. We have the EU defining a legal civil right. The corporate world says "oh noez! We can't do that! Our business model is BASED around violating that civil right!

      Not quite. The EU defines a legal right that is totally unimplementable. The "right to be forgotten" translates to "the right to be able to remotely delete data from every device on the planet".

      Data propagates. You give your data to entity A. Entity A then shares it to entities B, C and D. You decide you don't want Entity A to have your data any more; you communicate your intentions to them, and they delete the file. But what about entities B, C and D? Entity A has no ability to delete the files in their po

  • Translation (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "this places the onus on businesses to justify the collection and processing of citizens' data"

    So you basically have no privacy, they can collect as much data about you as they want and share it to whomever they want, as long as you have the right to know what's being collected and can request correction of "mistakes" in the dataset. For example you can correct Google's profile about you and state that you're not into vinyl clothes, you just buy them to better fit in at BSDM parties.

    This sure simplifies wri

  • I've lived in Europe my whole life, my privacy is the most important thing in my life after my family. FUCK YOU

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PRMan ( 959735 )
      Oooo. Alex Kasa said the F word.... ;)
    • If you're worried about it, I'd suggest not using g+ to log into sites that don't require it. Also, just stop using any web service that doesn't respect the privacy rights you require. In fact, I see a business opportunity right there - you should build a google/facebook/whatever competitor that is totally private and secure and doesn't track anything - people will flock to it and you'll make money hand over fist, i'm sure.

  • Hide yourself behind a wall of obfuscation.

  • No such right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Intropy ( 2009018 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @04:56PM (#43285279)

    You do not have a right to be forgotten. Think about what that means. That means you do something and I witness it. Do you have a right to compel me to forget it ever happened? Of course not. My right to be secure in my thoughts, the written expression thereof (which is what they really mean by forget), and my effects is a real right. Your desire for me to forget something you did is not.

    You have a right to privacy. Exercise it by not publishing information you want kept private. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and short of fraud or some other malfeasance being responsible for the breach of privacy in the first place, you have no right to command that anyone try.

    • Well, EU thinks I do have a right to be forgotten, and I think it sort of overrules your opinion on it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      Don't misunderstand the language. The right is to have private companies remove data you yourself uploaded/created and data they collect about you. Individuals writing blogs about other people will be totally unaffected. Journalists, individuals posting their own party photos with you in them to Facebook etc. Basically anyone who isn't a company storing user data is not part of this.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jma05 ( 897351 )

      > That means you do something and I witness it. Do you have a right to compel me to forget it ever happened? Of course not.

      Yes. But the law is not targeting people, but rather systems. Organizations are not people as are not machines. Asking to be forgotten by such systems is not without precedent. A judge may expunge a juvenile's record on adulthood, for instance. The people who already knew of the juvenile's escapades are not demanded to forget the events, nor are they forbidden from being queried late

  • Who the hell voted these people in, oh wait, no-one - these Commissioners, who consistently put forward pro-corporate anti-citizen laws need to be removed from EU's political system and the people who choose the laws need to be elected, anyone disagree?

  • The Orwellian State (i.e. the UK these days) is totally inept to answer this question.

  • Gay marriage, yipee. Drones, yes-sir. Protect kids from youthful indiscretions, unachievable.

    Put a watermark in a picture. Link it to signatures. All minors should be able to Takedown any non-parental image of themselves.
    Perhaps I could make a trolling app for that...

    Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets. [wikispeedia.org]

  • But seriously... it can't be overstated.

    Ideally... don't do stupid shit that you are going to regret later in the first place

    But failing that, because hey.... we all do things that thought might have been a good idea at the time, and only realized in hindsight that it wasn't particularly as good as one had originally thought, then at least be mature enough to face the consequences of your choices... and that means even if those consequences follow you for the rest of your life. Expecting societty or ot

    • An interesting side effect is a more forgiving society. The earliest examples of these types of "look what I saw X doing on facebook" revelations came across as much more scandalous in the media. Now it's ho-hum. Maybe it's just old news. But maybe we're coming to realize that everyone does some dumb stuff from time to time, and we need to deal with that fact proportionally rather than be shocked at any old thing. There's an old saying about the remedy for bad speech being more speech. Maybe we're seeing so

    • Ideally... don't do stupid shit that you are going to regret later in the first place

      What you think is stupid is not necessarily what someone else thinks is stupid; it's a personal opinion and nothing more than that. Something completely innocuous to you could be considered extremely offensive by someone else, and that someone else could be a potential employer.

      I'm not even talking about any right to be forgotten, just that not doing "stupid shit" isn't necessarily going to help you.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        Well, presumably, "not doing stupid shit" entails avoiding doing things that have some reasonable chance of costing you any desirable opportunities in the future... whether or not you necessarily personally think that those things are unwise or not.

        But ultimately, nobody can be perfectly prescient, or make perfect choices all of the time, and it's a exercise in futility to try. If some future possible employer gets offended at what they find out about you after googling your name, that's unfortunate, b

  • > "I believe the right to be forgotten is an overstatement," said Hustinx."

    It's also philosophically questionable. Other people have a right to remember you and blab about you, theanks to freedom of speech.

    It is correct to focus rather on procedures to force addressing of inaccuracies. If the data is accurate, oh well.

    Eh, wait until AI analyzes posts.

  • Harder to clear one's name now (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I got arrested on a completely false charge a few years ago. The charge was dropped, and supposedly its not on my record, but the records were available electronically so it still shows up when an employer does a background check.

    Any random person can accuse anyone of anything, without evidence, and it costs their target thousands of dollars to defend themselves and permanently blemishes their record. (Generally speaking, police don't really investigate like on TV, they consider it up to the court to dete

  • EU Double standard (Score:3)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @11:16PM (#43287989)
    Of course when this is about free market and destroying states as economic actors, there is no problem with member states different sensibilities, democracy can be trumped for the good cause. When we come about protecting citizens against megacorporation, it seems to be different.

  • ICO have always been pro-Stasi (Score:3)

    by UpnAtom ( 551727 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2013 @03:53AM (#43289005)

    I don't know how MI5 managed it but somehow the Data Protection Commissioner (now the Information Commissioner) was somewhat ambivalent about Stasi-like surveillance. The latter bit was told to me by Phil Booth, ex-national co-ordinator of NO2ID.

  • What is actually the problem here? I think the real problem is that one's data can be found, not that it exists somewhere. And the way to solve THAT problem is to implement a "search to kill" mechanism: a way to delete any data marked for killing when it is found. And if the holder of the data doesn't conform, the name and other data will be reported to the person whose data it is. I don't think that sounds difficult.

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