Google ordered to remove links to stories about Google removing links to stories
I know it's still quite a controversial topic, and I have not yet come down on whether or not I like the current implementations, but I am a fan of the notion of a Right to be Forgotten.<p>At the very least, I like the notion that a person should be able to have some level of control over what companies are allowed to access about them; the control over what information may be in the public sphere is a little more difficult to talk about. E.g., I deeply dislike that most companies operate on an opt-out system for information collection; I would rather information collection (particularly anything dealing with personally-identifying information) to be universally opt-in with some reasonable attempt (<i>not</i> an EULA) made to offer the user an informed decision.<p>Search-engines are tricky because they provide a public service for finding information but are, themselves, a company that often profits from the collection of information both in the usership of their service and in the data they crawl to aid their users in finding content.<p>My current opinion (which is not yet fully formed) is that it is wrong to order Google to unlist results; but, on the other hand, it should be completely legal to order Google to remove what is essentially a dossier that they have on a particular user (at that user's request).<p>I am still mulling this whole thing over; but, at the very least, it is obvious that the issue isn't a simple one.