Spain’s government is now championing a cause called "right to be forgotten". (46) It has ordered Google to stop indexing information about 90 citizens who filed formal complaints with its Data Protection Agency. All 90 people wanted information deleted from the Web. Among them was a victim of domestic violence who discovered that her address could easily be found through Google. Another, well into middle age now, thought it was unfair that a few computer key strokes could unearth an account of her arrest in her college days.
(47) They might not have received much of a hearing in the United States, where Google is based and where courts have consistently found that the right to publish the truth about someone’s past supersedes any right to privacy. But here, as elsewhere in Europe, an idea has taken hold —individuals should have a "right to be forgotten" on the Web.
(48) In fact, the phrase "right to be forgotten" is being used to cover a batch of issues, ranging from those in the Spanish case to the behavior of companies seeking to make money from private information that can be collected on the Web.
(49) Spain’s Data Protection Agency believes that search engines have altered the process by which most data ends up forgotten—and therefore adjustments need to be made. The deputy director of the agency, Jesfús Rubí, pointed to the official government gazette(公报), which used to publish every weekday, including bankruptcy auctions, official pardons, and who passed the civil service exams. Usually 220 pages of fine print, it quickly ended up gathering dust on various backroom shelves. The information was still there, but not easily accessible. Then two years ago, the 350 yearold publication went online, it possible for embarrassing information—no matter how old—to be obtained easily.
The publisher of the government publication, Fernando Pérez, said it was meant to foster transparency. Lists of scholarship winners, for instance, make it hard for the government officials to steer all the money to their own children. "But maybe, " he said, "there is information that has a life cycle and only has value for a certain time. "
Many Europeans are broadly uncomfortable with the way personal information is found by search engines and used for commerce. When ads pop up on one’s screen, clearly linked to subjects that are of interest to him, one may find it Orwellian. A recent poll conducted by the European Union found that most Europeans agree. Three out of four said they were worried about how Internet companies used their information and wanted the right to delete personal data at any time. Ninety percent wanted the European Union to take action on the right to be forgotten.
(50) Experts say that Google and other search engines see some of these court cases as an assault on a principle of law already established—that search engines are essentially not responsible for the information they corral from the Web, and hope the Spanish court agrees. The companies believe if there are privacy issues, the complainants should address those who posted the material on the Web. But some experts in Europe believe that search engines should probably be reined in. "They are the ones that are spreading the word. Without them no one would find these things. \