I really have to rant about the idiocy of this law. For full disclosure, I am American.<p>They call it a "right to be forgotten," but guess what, I have a right to information (speech, press, etc.) that I think supercedes this supposed right which I've never heard of before this law. People need to learn to live with their mistakes and be more careful about their actions. If a person (to cite the specific example commonly mentioned) went into bankruptcy due to economic issues, poor investment or even 'bad luck' then that is a matter of legal proceedings and should be public record.<p>I can certainly understand things like nude photos, sex tapes, etc. but we already have legal means of dealing with those examples. Can someone convince me why this law is necessary and in the public interest?<p>Edit: Took out statement about Chinese censorship because people were attacking that rather than the substance of THIS law.
I just don't get this law. It's so shortsighted and really will only benefit the rich elite who can hire lawyers to enforce it.<p>Think about it. If a common joe asks to have a link removed, but google doesn't do it, what can he do? He has to hire a lawyer to get it removed.<p>So, the only people that can afford this process are the rich elite. And then you have the rich elite essentially censoring the internet on stuff they don't want you to know about.<p>It just doesn't make any sense at all.
They could make the argument that Google (and other search engines) essentially re-publish information so it's appropriate to make them responsible.<p>I think that point of view is one that many in the tech community don't share. We see it as collating results rather than publishing information.<p>That difference of viewpoint is very significant when you think about it.
It's interesting that they have already received 91000 removal requests involving more than 320 000 urls.<p>53% of these have been removed, this is having a big impact...