[danielfoster]

If this is the case, then the government should pass laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of criminal record. Instead they've passed the puck (rather badly) to Google.

And it's not like Google is the only way to find things. Should newspapers be required to delete pages about an individual or destroy print copies? What about other search engines such as Yandex or Baidu? Of course anyone could just search on Google.com, too.

Mankind has done perfectly well without a "right to be forgotten" for hundreds of thousands of years.

[tonyg]

> Mankind has done perfectly well without a "right to be forgotten" for hundreds of thousands of years.

On the other hand, mankind has done perfectly well without computers, an internet, or indeed indoor plumbing for hundreds of thousands of years.

Sometimes new technologies demand new responses.

[kenbaylor]

They have started to pass laws. The GDPR covers the processing of criminal convictions here: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-10-gdpr/

While mankind has not needed a right to be forgotten previously, it didn't have the omnipresent Google to deal with either. These are just the opening shots in the Privacy battle that will spread from GDPR.

Other search engines are affected too, but Google has a massive market share and has a long litigation history in Europe.

[pjc50]

> government should pass laws forbidding discrimination on the basis of criminal record

They did. https://www.gov.uk/exoffenders-and-employment

"It’s against the law to refuse someone a job because they’ve got a spent conviction or caution, unless it’s because a DBS check shows that they’re unsuitable."

> Mankind has done perfectly well without a "right to be forgotten" for hundreds of thousands of years.

Mankind has done without total digital records of everyone's life, too. Now that we have those records, are they going to be used to make people's lives worse?

I feel this would be less controversial if it was "right to be de-indexed": finding a newspaper from a particular date should show the same information, but "find me all information relating to Joe Bloggs" is a much more complicated question.

[flexie]

Mankind has not had any rights for 99,9 percent of those hundreds of thousands of years you mention and we have only had such accessible records on each other for the past 25 years.

[octorian]

> Mankind has done perfectly well without a "right to be forgotten" for hundreds of thousands of years.

Because mankind had a de-facto "right to be forgotten" that could be exercised by simply moving to a different community.

[schoen]

While I also oppose the "right to be forgotten", I think an obvious reply to your last point is that we also haven't had search engines, the web, newspapers, journalism, or even writing for most of that time.

[dclowd9901]

Counterpoint to your counterpoint: now those who have done heinous things in history can rewrite it. I shudder to think of a terrible leader excising his failed tenure from the annals of history.

Google, for better or worse, is a repository of knowledge, the most powerful one we've ever had. We owe it to ourselves to use it responsibly, not hobble it. The problem is a puritanical society that refuses to let someone with a scarlet letter move on with their life.

[schoen]

The way the RTBF is usually formulated includes a notion of proportionality and public interest, so supposedly public officials can't exercise this right in this way, although it then involves a subjective point-in-time judgment about how important information is to history and the public interest.

[risotto_groupon]

The nazi hypothermia experiments using holocaust prisoners was simply measuring outcomes. It is the best measure of experimental outcomes we have using live test subjects...

But its highly questionable whether these results should be used, not only ethically, but because data gathered under such circumstances is less reliable... its more reliable than nothing... but should it be used? It exists and its mere existence will lead to policy and problems.

You should really listen to the podcast between Sam Harris and Ezra Klein that was just published on "The Bell Curve" and the data we have on IQ in minority populations. It might change the way you think about the immutability and sacrosanct nature of measuring outcomes.

[dclowd9901]

In a "right to work" world, it is _very difficult_ to prove true discrimination, and the burden of proof is always on the accuser.

[simias]

Mankind didn't have a way to look up in mere seconds the cringe-worthy posts I made on Usenet as a teenager for thousands of years either. It's the amount of data and the ease to consult it that creates this issue.

[walshemj]

Of course not because if say a tabloid news paper finds out about some one they dislike or want to sell papers - they will "monster" them.