Who decides what privacy is?

More than a year ago, in a decision that shocked many American Internet companies, Europe’s court ruled that search engines were required to comply with an unusual right: the “right to be forgotten.” The court found that certain users have the right to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that include the person's name. To qualify, the results shown would need to be inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant, or excessive. Google has adhered the ruling, a surprise decision that stirred debates about the balance between privacy and free speech, while fighting it in the courts. 

In its updated report last Wednesday, Google said it has evaluated more than 1.2 million Web pages on case-by-case basis and removed 42% of them from its search results. It also included a list of the 10 domains most affected by link removals, most of them being social networking sites. 

The disclosure highlighted an ironic aspect of the ruling: that search engines are the intermediaries of the removal requests. In other words, it is up to Google to evaluate the ethics of a request and decide on a course of action. Although Google didn’t explicitly explain why it removes some links and keeps others, it did provide clues as to what it takes into account when making the decision. Whether someone is a public or private figure, whether it considers a crime to be minor, and whether incidents in question took place during a person’s private or professional life. For example, in one case, Google denied a prominent businessman’s request to remove articles about his lawsuit against a newspaper. In another case, it removed a link about what it called a teacher’s minor conviction years ago.

In its report, Google proudly stated that it considers the rights of the individual as well as public interest in the content. Even though the government forced search engines like Google to comply with the law, it is the company’s view of right and wrong that ultimately controls the law. With this in mind, I think this is an acceptable compromise between regulators and private entities. Private companies can now add to their list of proprietary services with purely synthetic but equally as proprietary ideals. I don’t think that most people who chalk the decision up as a win for privacy advocates realize that they don’t have as much power as they think. Of course, Google’s compliance is a blow to free speech but now there’s a strange limbo where someone can get away with things on one domain but not on another. Is it really privacy when different entities can change the meaning of the word? 

Assuming for a moment that all search engines adhered to the same principles of privacy, the law still doesn’t take into account domains registered in other countries but still accessible in the EU. The Internet can never truly forget and any ideas of an identity eraser should be left in the spy movies they come from. Unfortunately, many people don’t get a second chance because of this grim truth. If anything, instead of trying to eliminate the exposure, people should spend more time trying to limit it. Being more conscious of your actions on the internet can greatly reduce the risk of “being remembered” in the real world.