The right to be forgotten is a legal right to have personal details about an individual be eliminated from Internet search and other people directories under particular conditions. The concept is being shared and discussed in the the European Union in addition to in Argentina since 2021. It was first debated in the US in 2021, with certain states such as California and New Hampshire passing laws making it legal. The rights are mainly set out for information about people who were once minors but have been adults.
There's also an extra right to be forgotten which includes information regarding arrests, convictions, removals, immigration offenses or sexual offences. This may be used by anyone to clear their title when they move off, and move to another state or even if they get married. Under certain conditions, it may also be possible to get certain public records such as divorce, criminal or other court records of an individual cleared by searches by search engines. On the other hand, the Delhi high court has ruled that this right cannot be permitted to taxpayers unless there is a clear need to do so. The court has described a circumstance where individuals can be forced to remove information about themselves from search engines if it is required for a criminal prosecution or to defend the individual from being abused physically, mentally or sexually.
Within an instance where one has the right to be forgotten, the instance is usually consumed by the Argentina courts. A good example of such an instance happened in Argentina where the father of a boy was hauled to a hiding place by the police and given false information regarding where he had been likely to meet his secret fan. After this he was tortured and later died in a hospital. He wasn't given the chance to provide a legitimate reason as to why he needs to forget his name. It was subsequently found that a request to the Argentina courts had been sufficient to annul the arrest and remove all the details regarding his case. It has also been declared that the right to be forgotten has no worth and does not have any legal security in the United States of America.
However, it is important to state that although, Google did remove several web pages throughout the world from its index, it has refused to get rid of specific webpages such as the one at the link above. Many search engines including MSN, Yahoo and Bing have selected not to remove this website from their index for the reason that it relates to an area of legislation that is a matter of public record. This means that although the European court announced the right to become forgotten, it has also set a precedent for a number of other cases and is likely to expand its decisions. As a result, while this situation may represent an exclusion, it doesn't mean that the right to be forgotten has no worth and many people worldwide still fight to possess certain information removed on the world wide web derecho al olvido.
There is a second case that was ruled in against Google. A Spanish judge ordered Google to remove a link to an alleged spammer from its search engines. However, Google appealed this decision saying that the judge had failed to employ some logic when coming up with the decision and did not take into consideration that some spamming can happen unintentionally. It follows that under the Spanish legislation, Google could be breaking the law if it allowed links to be eliminated that were being used to send spam out. The company has also pointed out that the Spanish authorities introduced new laws that restricted who can demand that a site be taken off the internet.
Today, the judgment on the matter might appear inconsequential. But it serves as a reminder that individuals are battling for the right to be forgotten along with the future of the net. As the world becomes more connected and information is more accessible, individuals are fighting to be able to control what their data says online. In the event the web becomes a more closely controlled environment where individuals are permanently connected together, then free speech and open communication are at risk. The battle for the best to be forgotten may result in a future where anybody can have any personal information removed from the internet regardless of whether it was intentional.