France Considers 'Right To Forget' Law, Apparently Not Realizing The Internet Never Forgets

from the good-luck-with-that dept

Fri, Jan 8th 2010 10:30am — Mike Masnick

Hot on the heels of France considering laws to tax successful internet companies to try to prop up unsuccessful entertainment industry companies, comes a report that France is also considering a special "right to forget" law, which would allow anyone to ask that any information about them be deleted after a certain period of time. At first, I though that they meant content created by the person asking for it to be deleted (like emails), but it sounds like they mean any content about a person. So, say, if you did something embarrassing in college, and your friends put pictures of it online, once the time limit for the "right to forget" law kicked in, you could demand every version of that picture be taken offline. Yeah. Like that will work. Trying to suppress information online doesn't work, no matter what law you put in place. I'm reminded of the convicted German murderer, who is demanding that information on his conviction be removed from Wikipedia under a similar type of law. All that did was call a lot more attention to the story.

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Filed Under: defamation, forget, france, internet, right to forget

23 Comments

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Andrew F (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 10:39am

Forgive not Forget
If you're looking for more reading material on this, Prof. Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger wrote a book about the "virtues of forgetting".
http://www.amazon.com/Delete-Virtue-Forgetting-Digital-Age/dp/0691138613/ref=wl_it_dp_ o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3W2S92JZ4C656&colid=3IOU5RED7X1MW

Personally, I think the issue is less about forgetting and more about forgiving. A lot of these right-to-forget advocates underestimate the ability of society to grow more tolerant of dumb-stuff-in-the-past.

In America, just compare Doug Ginsburg's, whose nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 tanked over marijuana usage in the 70s, with Barack Obama, who did cocaine and marijuana and yet managed to become president.

As time goes on, almost everyone will have something on the Internet about themselves they wish wasn't there. We'll all learn to live with it, and that's a good thing.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2010 @ 10:45am

If this goes global Ted Alvin Klaudt may use it to have Ted Alvin Klaudt's name out of the internet as Ted Alvin Klaudt wanted (after raping his foster daughters).
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2010 @ 10:49am

What are they smoking over there? They come across as six year olds playing with dolls making up their own rules in their fantastical worlds:

Babs: I have made dinner out of plastic, and it has ever been thus!

GI George: Yum! I shall declare the war against the Fisher-Price Peoples over and so it shall be, since I said so!

Transformative: I hereby decree that I shall be known from hereon as the Family Dog!

And if you're part of someone *else's* memories, you can't really pass a LAW stating they HAVE to wipe you out of them...

Gad, they are so high...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2010 @ 11:29am

Can't we just forget about France and move on already?
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Jimr (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 11:36am

Did France also want a copy the internet on a 3½ floppy to review over the weekend too?
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Ima Fish (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 11:49am

Re:
"What are they smoking over there?"

I was thinking the same thing. France is basically becoming the Florida of Europe.
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Anonymous, 8 Jan 2010 @ 11:51am

We do not forget
We do not forgive
We are legion
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Comboman (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 11:54am

Politicians make laws
I suspect this will pass (in France and elsewhere) since politicians make the laws and politicians always have something in their past that they want everyone to forget (infidelity, shady business deals, drug use, DUI, etc).
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a-dub (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 12:03pm

France is always so far ahead in the fashion world, and the same is also true when it comes to France and the internet. Normally, it would be silly to think that anyone could ask for something to be completely deleted off the internet, but this is totally different. It is painfully obvious that France is the first to reach the end of the internet, and in so doing, they have obtained the right to complete control of the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2010 @ 12:13pm

The first step to rewriting history...
is erasing the old history.
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Adolf Hitler, 8 Jan 2010 @ 12:39pm

Re: Forgive AND Forget
Dear France,

Thank you for this heartfelt and progressive proposal. I wholeheartedly support this effort, and when enacted, I would like to serve notice that I would like France to "forget" that nasty little occupation that we had back in 1940.

Hell, as long as we're at it, let's just "forget" the Holocaust, K?

Sincerely,

AH
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Burnt Nose, 8 Jan 2010 @ 1:00pm

Re: Re: Forgive AND Forget
Wow. Blowing hot coffee out of your nose while trying to suppress laughter at work REALLY hurts!!

I wonder if the inside of your nose blisters...
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SeanG (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 2:03pm

I've said this in other contexts, but it applies here. 1984 is not a 'how to' manual. I'm sure Orwell would have included the internet if it had existed.
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Chris in Utah (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 2:24pm

Re:
super green agreed
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Chris in Utah (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 2:29pm

Re:
super green agreed
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Call me Al (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 2:55pm

This is frustrating. Everyone has embarrassing stories in their past and that is a good thing as it shows they are real people. The attempts by politicians to whitewash their past is terribly false and disconnects them completely from the people they are supposed to represent.

We need minor skeletons in the closet of people to force society to be a bit more relaxed and tolerant about the little things.
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 3:34pm

He Who Must Not Be Named
..........

Wow.

So if Hitler were alive and languishing in a prison somewhere, he could ask the Internet to 'forget' him?

Would that make him (and any other historical figure) They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

Rofl.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 8 Jan 2010 @ 4:32pm

Re:
"Can't we just forget about France and move on already?"

Oh, shut up Adolf...
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robphelan (profile), 10 Jan 2010 @ 8:11am

to a certain extent, why wouldn't the ability to request some embarrassing, or even very private, information about oneself be good(if not possible)?

I'm not talking about politicians/public figures doing cocaine, i'm talking about Joe-computer-user who sees that someone has listed all his current/previous addresses and phone numbers.

What if someone had posted pics/info of your KID?

Personally, i'd like to request my account info, including credit card info, be deleted from a handful of merchant sites - such as those involved with the "web loyalty" scam that surfaced - http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10399880-93.html
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robphelan (profile), 10 Jan 2010 @ 8:34am

btw, here's a link with the full list of merchants at the bottom of the page

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10426214-261.html?tag=mncol;posts
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nasch (profile), 10 Jan 2010 @ 11:55am

Re:
I'm not talking about politicians/public figures doing cocaine, i'm talking about Joe-computer-user who sees that someone has listed all his current/previous addresses and phone numbers.

Unlisted numbers? If they were in the phone book, what is the problem with this?

What if someone had posted pics/info of your KID?

If the law were only about minors, there probably wouldn't be much controversy (but it still wouldn't work). It sounds like this proposed law would apply to anyone, public or private, adult or child.
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DTS, 10 Jan 2010 @ 3:47pm

Re: He Who Must Not Be Named
> So if Hitler were alive and languishing in a prison somewhere, he could ask the Internet to 'forget' him?

Why not? Current laws already allow dead people to claim benefits from copyrights.
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Re: Forgive not Forget
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