Robert Peston:
So there have been some interesting developments in my encounter with the EU's “Right to be Forgotten” rules.
It is now almost certain that the request for oblivion has come from someone who left a comment about the story.
On the surface, the European Union's 'Right to be Forgotten' law seems like a win for privacy advocates, but it is a complicated law. It can be both good and very bad. Take the linked article for example. In this case someone asked that the article be purged because they person made a comment on the article — the article isn't about them, they just commented on it. That's surely not the intent of the law, but it is the law.
What's even more odd, is that it appears that only searching for that person's specific name will show the article missing, other searches still turn up the “removed” article.
So essentially what the EU has created is a law that:
- Is being abused already.
- Doesn't actually work.
Well done.