The ‘right to be forgotten,’ an integral component of the proposed reforms to the European Union data protection legislation, asserts an individual’s right to have personal information removed from the Internet. Mario Consteja Gonzalez, a Spanish national who ran into financial difficulties, brought the issue of the right to be forgotten on Internet searches to awareness. Gonzalez sold his property to resolve this predicament, and news of his economic state surfaced on the Internet. This damaged his reputation, decreased his job opportunities and led to loss of credibility. By demanding Google and other search engines to remove these links, Gonzalez ignited the debate about the importance of privacy in our digital era. A great deal of controversy …show more content…
It has been argued that for every Internet user that uses the right to be forgotten, another Internet user’s freedom of speech is been violated or taken away. Adam Thierer of The Technology Liberation Front, states, "First, it should be apparent that any "right to be forgotten" conflicts mightily with free speech rights and press freedom… The problem with enshrining expansive privacy "rights" into law is that it means there will need to be stricter limits placed on speech and press freedoms" (Thierer). The right to be forgotten will lead to the limiting of the freedom of speech, which is a civil right that is given to every individual. Freedom of Speech is the political right to communicate one's opinions and ideas using one's body and property to anyone who is willing to receive them, and if certain Internet users can request links to be hidden from the internet, freedom of speech is ultimately violated. Parker Higgins, an Electronic Frontier Foundation activist and spokesperson, states, "Limiting what sorts of things a search engine can link to…It's a specialized area of speech, but it's real speech. And it affects what kinds of news people can discuss. It puts a chilling effect on journalists' reporting, and to what they can link. The ruling potentially jeopardizes the general social standard that published content can be freely discussed" (Higgins). When the right to be forgotten is enabled by Internet users, and they request information to be supressed, the information is completely deleted from search engines, hiding it and deceiving the public in the process. This leads to the modifying of the truth in an unruly fashion, hindering creativity, and preventing the youth and the older generations from learning about current
The word “privacy” has a different meaning in our society than it did in previous times. You can put on Privacy settings on Facebook, twitter, or any social media sights, however, nothing is truly personal and without others being able to view your information. You can get to know a person’s personal life simply by typing in their name in google. In the chronicle review, “Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide,'" published on May 15th 2011, Professor Daniel J. Solove argues that the issue of privacy affects more than just individuals hiding a wrong. The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. Solove starts talking about this argument right away in the article and discusses how the nothing-to-hide
In the Engineering and Technology Journal, two engineers, Gareth Mitchell and Guy Clapperton, gave their thoughts on both sides of the privacy issue. Is gathering information violating personal privacy? They made their arguments using currency as a metaphor for personal information and online services a product. Mitchell argues the case that giving out personal information is “too high a price to pay” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). He says that despite the option to opt out of cookies and certain information, many sites are more covert and make their opt out option less accessible than a pop up asking to opt out. The site makes it hard for the Internet user to say no to being tracked. Mitchell warns the reader to take more consideration into what information they are giving away and that “privacy is not to be taken for granted” (Mitchell, 2013, p. 26). Getting information from the Internet would mean tra...
...of nations, countries, cities, towns, and individuals can be severely harmed and damaged if there is no control on the information being disbursed through the vast communication devices available. While everyone cites the right to freedom of speech, it is sometimes forgotten about the part that states as long as it doesn’t harm another person is often overlooked.
“Human beings are not meant to lose their anonymity and privacy,” Sarah Chalke. When using the web, web users’ information tend to be easily accessible to government officials or hackers. In Nicholas Carr’s “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” Jim Harpers’ “Web Users Get As Much As They Give,” and Lori Andrews “Facebook is Using You” the topic of internet tracking stirred up many mixed views; however, some form of compromise can be reached on this issue, laws that enforces companies to inform the public on what personal information is being taken, creating advisements on social media about how web users can be more cautious to what kind of information they give out online, enabling your privacy settings and programs, eliminating weblining,
...second using the search engine, people lose their motivation to read and the attention to think about the answer. (Crovitz 353) In Plato’s Phaedrus, Greek philosopher Socrates claims that people who get information without proper instruction as ignorant since they only conceit of the answer instead of the wisdom to find out and understand the answer. (Carr 341) With such access to information, we do spread information and expand human knowledge in a rapid rate. However, we lose our creativity, intelligence and the spirit of inquiry.
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
It has long been believed that information is power. Thus, people collecting personal information in ...
To begin with, various websites are violating our privacy by selling our data to third party companies. Today accumulation of personal information is escalating using technology tools all over the world without permission of an individual. Precisely, social networking sites such as Facebook collects information actively while websites such as Google passively. Facebook allows strangers to view anyone’s profile and systematically eliminates privacy for those who choos...
The right to privacy and the right to be forgotten are both what most people think of has a something that they must have like the right of freedom or the right to bears arms. However, that done not apply to everyone like criminals, politicians and everyday people who all post things on the internet or someone during for them. I think that the right to be forgotten is not for those kind of people.
Since the internet has been available in schools and libraries in this country, there has been a debate about what should be accessible to users, especially minors. The amount of information disseminated on the world wide web is vast, with some sources valuable for scholarly and personal research and entertainment, and some sources that contain material that is objectionable to some (ie. pornography, gambling, hate groups sites, violent materials). Some information potentially accessible on the internet such as child pornography and obscenity is strictly illegal and is not protected under the First Amendment. Some information available on the internet that may be valuable to some is at the same time perceived to be worthless or potentially harmful to some. For libraries serving the public, there has been controversy on the issue of providing the internet, free of censorship or filtering, to users. While some librarians and their professional associations align with ideals of free and unfiltered access to all information provided by the internet, some feel that filtering internet content to exclude possibly objectionable materials is a reasonable measure to prevent potential harm to minors.
Part of the allure of the Internet has always been the anonymity it offers its users. As the Internet has grown however, causing capitalists and governments to enter the picture, the old rules are changing fast. E-commerce firms employ the latest technologies to track minute details on customer behavior. The FBI's Carnivore email-tracking system is being increasingly used to infringe on the privacy of netizens. Corporations now monitor their employees' web and email usage. In addition to these privacy infringements, Internet users are also having their use censored, as governments, corporations, and other institutions block access to certain sites. However, as technology can be used to wage war on personal freedoms, it can also be employed in the fight against censorship and invasion of privacy.
Millions of people resent the government for being somewhat of a Big Brother, making accusations of spyware programs and hacking, supposedly regulating our every move, yet freely share exceedingly personal information publicly. It has become common practice to post about your family members, location, phone number, email address, workplace, political affiliations and so much more, reaching far beyond the simple question “what are you doing now?”. Although many sites like Twitter and Instagram have a delete button, your postings are in actuality never erased permanently, but instead are gone from your so-called timeline. Daum notes in her essay that, “in a world without boundaries… privacy as a cultural or even personal value has been going out of style for quite some time now” (233). It is almost hypocritical in a way how our society pretends to value secrecy and discretion, yet people of all walks of life exhibit very little self restraint when it comes to filtering the kinds of information they post about
Perhaps the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it best when he claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” Virtually everyone has a smart phone and everyone has social media. We continue to disclose private information willingly and the private information we’re not disclosing willingly is being extracted from our accounts anyway. Technology certainly makes these things possible. However, there is an urgent need to make laws and regulations to protect against the stuff we’re not personally disclosing. It’s unsettling to think we are living in 1984 in the 21st century.
In this new era of the Internet, most people use the Internet to acquire information of one kind or other. But what these people are not aware of is that the Internet is collecting information about them. Every time we get onto the Internet there might be a compromise of privacy of our personal information. The information flows both ways. With every clock of the mouse on a hyperlink, or an addition to the mailing list, someone out there might be gathering information about us. This raises the seriousness of privacy of our information on the Internet.