Should people be allowed the right to be forgotten online?

Should people be allowed the right to be forgotten online?

Just two days back on May 14, an EU court came with a new ruling supporting the 'right to be forgotten online and to erasure.' As per the new ruling, residents of Europe now have a legal right to block the information appearing on the search engines. They can approach Google and other search engines to remove the sensitive information from their database. Is this a right decision? Should people be allowed the right to be forgotten online?

Yes

• It is a clear invasion of privacy when the search engines provide the personal information to the local people.

• Search engines are a medium to get right information. They should not transform into watch engine.

• It is especially good for women, as their pictures are taken by wrong means and published on internet

• Disclosure of personal details can lead to an increase number of crimes. People can find many ways to interfere with the security of people.

• Coming to the point of common interest, the court ruling have given the exceptions to the search engines for denying the requests if they are in favor of public interest.

No

• You cannot make the search engines one sided and self-defined pages where only good things are listed and the bad things are removed.

• It can pose a threat to the freedom of expression by stopping the search engines from displaying the important information.

• People will use the search engines for their own selfish motives; it will no longer be a search engine that people can rely on.

• Technically, it will not be possible for the search engines to keep updating or blocking the information of certain people. It can mess up the entire system.

• It can increase the costs to the search engines to perform the necessary tasks under the new ruling. And it is not the search engines who gather the information; it is the people who spread their information.

Conclusion

The new court ruling is done to reinforce the protection against the invasion of the privacy. However, the ruling has many other drawbacks. People and even the businesses can use it to fulfill their own motives. In such a scenario, it was better for the court to divide the cases in different group or classes. Google and the other search engines are used for the constructive purposes. They are a source of reliable information. Any erasure of facts can put a question on the reliability and accuracy of the information.