An interesting topic that I didn't find a thread about yet: The right to be forgotten. An EU court ruled that Google must delete old entries for search results of individuals if someone dislikes them and they could be negative for him.

There are the usual arguments for it, but here I see some interesting counter-arguments:
http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobile-business/rethink-the-right-to-be-forgotten/d/d-id/1252832

What do you think? Should there be a right to be forgotten? If so, in how far? Does the internet need to adapt relevance criteria on what must stay, and can the rest be deleted from search results at least?

Why should we fake "history"? Of course usually people who have something embarrassing about them are the most vocal about this. I agree that the relevance of old deeds is not as high than recent things, but still they are part of the individual or a corporation's history and they shouldn't be erased from history...

We're not talking about erasing something from "history", it's just the internet.

I'm fairly sure the "Third World War" will be fought and won on the basis of knowledge and who owns more of the internet, thus making persecution of groups easier. The right to be forgotten should be a given, sometimes people make mistakes and share things they didn't want to or didn't know what the consequences of doing somethings on the internet should be. These people have the right to be protected from information abuse by third parties, companies and plain other citizens wanting to harm them.

I don't think companies or governments have the same right, but individual citizens? Most definitely. And it's a right, not an obligation, anyone who wishes to keep everything they did or said online for eternity can still do it.

I mostly agree with this, but It's a complex topic.

Maybe some useless things (non important for society) shouldn't show up publicly forever..

All the wrong info, then, should be removed or corrected.

Well, I think there must be a differentiated approach. If there are good reasons (being victim of a crime, living in a children home, etc.) there should be such a right. For someone who changed his opinion about something or wants to revise an own article, yes. But if there is enough relevance for something to be quoted by let's say a newspaper, there should be restrictions on the right to be forgotten.

Essentially you could use this indeed for far more sinister purposes. So there is this guy who had child porn. Do we want this guy - even if doctors say he is not dangerous anymore - to lead a kindergarten? Do we want someone who evaded taxes to lead a country? Or someone who uttered murder threats be able to buy a gun?

I think in all those cases we have to take the risk of society and the risk for the individual into account. One that could weigh in favor of him or against him, depending on many factors. But forgetting the past would be one factor that would make me uneasy. People should have a right to hide certain facts from the public, but not all.

I am all for not having your religion or political views public, based on how it can be abused. But if you decided willingly to make it public and people react to it, then there shouldn't be a right to forget if you leave it standing for a certain period of time, one that shows how you were at some point as a person. Are people idiots enough to take not into account someone can change?

Let us look at the cases above:
The guy with the child porn could have had it out of curiosity. Or he could have had it for his sexual drive. In the former case I think he has a right to be forgotten. In the latter case not since it is something that still influences the security of society. Maybe - as in the case of a German politician - he even had it to make contacts to expose criminals, to learn about their distribution networks, to do the work that the police does reject(!) to do.

In the second case, what were the circumstances when he evaded taxes? Did he evade while being poor, or did he evade just out of greed? In the latter case, he has shown that he does not respect the country more than his own wellbeing. In the former case, he might have felt he needs the money to survive or to be more safe about survival, about not getting into debts if something bad happens. He should have every right to be forgotten there.

The last case: Were the murder threats serious? Did they stem from a mental illness, from years of maltreatment? Did it have a religious or political motivation, and has that changed? There are many questions that need to be evaluated here, but if the deletion of information harms society as a whole or has the potential to do so, it must be refuted. This includes the history of companies as well as of individuals, but with higher relevance there should be less of the right to be forgotten, as it would hurt society more to have information be destroyed.

Wrong info yes, but I often look up people I'm dealing with. What if they were a scammer, but they had the right to be forgotten? And now they want to start again? It's a sensible topic though, I agree with that.

I think it is a very important right (it's actually enforced in law in several ways, one of which is prescription) and to me it makes sense because of people changing. I think that people cease to be the person they were, after a few years, and it's a bit unhealtrhy to 'fixate' in some sort of intemporality what belongs to their former selves.

I for one know that I have very different opinions -and attides- now from what I held 10 or 20 years ago. I am not sure I'd sympathise with myself very much, and I don't want to be identified with stances that I don't identify to. I can imagine how awkward it would be if such stances, or behaviours, were attached to my identity forever, through the internet intemporality.

Generally speaking, I don't think that our bureaucratic, rational-legal, societies deal very well with this. And even less now that there is the internet. Contrast it to socities (amerindian, for instance) where people's names could change after life-redefining milestones or events. We have a "logical" approach to identity that, in my opinion, doesn't match very well what identity is. Or, at least, a very reductive perspective on it.

Anyway - Theseus' ship, and all that.

Rather than a "right to be forgotten," how about more respect paid to people's "right of privacy" to begin with? A lot of things end up on the news that aren't really "news" and weren't actually relevant when they were "new," let alone years after the fact. If it really is news that is relevant for people to know because it affects public welfare and safety, then your right to be forgotten ends where my right to know what I'm dealing with starts. But if we're just talking about that time you snapped a drunk selfie at a frat party, well I don't have the right to remember what you already forgot by the next morning. ^_^

This is silly. Get it right the first time if you care about what people will think later. :P

Bingo on a crucial aspect.

This is a good topic where typical left / right idologies lack a clear dividing line. Also a topic where the usual anti IP advocates may realize their arguments can easily be extended to justify eliminating any privacy rights. Hackers at least see that moral quandary clearly, and rationalize it somewhat.

Situations where others know something about you are very tricky in terms of determining ownership of said information. Who owns an individuals's reputation? The individual or society? Libel, blackmail and such are concepts related to this.

Definitively where an individual's communication/expressive actions are crimes his privacy is a non-issue. These are really not so many cases: treason, conspiracy and solicitation come to mind. The usual "abuse" comes with offensive intent, which I believe the guideline should be to respect and tolerate as private choices or accidents of fate. It's not my / our concern or business that person A hates / loves person B or why.

I think the individual privacy angle is the best guideline, and can't help but think that if "Intellectual Property" in a broad sense would be more respected culturaly we would have such a right to privacy socially enforced more frequently for matters related to anyone's reputation. But it's so easy to just take what someone says and "copy" it or make some use of it to our own benefit without any consideration/respect of their wishes right?

Power corrupts and the more power... you know how it goes. ;)

How about a right to not remember in the first place?

Google does it for 2 major reasons. The first supposed "nice" reason is that it helps improve search results.
I've never found google's habit of tailoring its searches to be particularly helpful to me, so I think that is BS. If I'm looking for something, I don't want relevant information to be excluded or hidden because of what I might have searched before, especially if it means that google has a record of my search history,

The second reason, the REAL reason is so that google has some info on us to sell to advertisers. Their entire operations (search, gmail, youtube, google+, maps) is geared towards this. And I don't appreciate it. What happened to the days of "Here are your results, and here is a small advertisement through which we make our money"?

Either way, I use duckduckgo to search (but I do make use of most of google's other services), so it doesn't matter to me.

who decides what is irrelevant?

In 20 years, you'll look back at this comment, go "d'oh!", and the universe will collapse in a black hole of irony.

I understand this reasoning, but a 20 year old's brain just doesn't work like that. They still don't quite get the idea of "consequences" for actions. Hence the insanity found on social networking sites.

Edit: consequences isn't the right word. It's more of an "it can't happen to me" attitude.

People make mistakes, but we should all make decisions that we believe in at the time and not regret who we were before just because we become someone else later. I wouldn't do the same things as before, but that doesn't mean I'd change or erase it. How else would I remember not to do it again? :P