{"id":7008,"date":"2014-06-11T18:18:47","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T22:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=7008"},"modified":"2014-06-25T17:35:10","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T21:35:10","slug":"politics-as-usual-the-right-to-be-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-the-right-to-be-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: The Right to be Forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google has just begun the process of wading through the 10s of thousands of requests from folks in Europe who are exercising their newly found \u201cright to be forgotten.\u201d
\nThe European Union\u2019s high court ruled recently that people have a right to demand that search engines like Google cut links to articles about themselves that are no longer current or relevant. In other words, you have a right to limit what information about yourself is out there for anyone to see.
\nThe ruling stemmed from a case of a man who had a significantly sizeable debt that he was unable to pay and as a result, was ordered to sell his house to pay the debt.
\nThe matter was reported in local newspapers. What wasn\u2019t reported was that the man did pay the debt.
\nWhen the newspapers put their archived copies on line, the story about the man losing his house because he couldn\u2019t pay his debts, became part of the monolithic trove of searchable information known as Google. And, his potential for mortification was multiplied exponentially. And worse \u2013 the mortification would never end. It would be forever.
\nAnd that\u2019s the crux of the issue. In the internet era, privacy is a rather scarce commodity. Every word you say, every picture taken of you, every indiscretion \u2013 minor to major \u2013 can end up on the internet.
\nIt\u2019s why we warn kids to stop posting so much personal information about themselves online. Many a kid has been warned that that photo you posted to facebook of you hammered, next to a bong, will show up some day when you\u2019ve made the short list for that dream job and HR does a Google search.
\nJob gone! Don\u2019t kid yourself. It happens.
\nThe man who launched the suit runs his own business, a business built on his personal reputation. The fact that this unfortunate incident from nearly two decades ago popped up every time someone Googled caused him to fear the impacts to both his business as well as his personal reputation
\nI think it is a ruling that is certainly well past due.
\nWe all have a right to privacy. And we need to exercise that right. Far too much about our lives is stored in databases over which we have little or no control. And so many times that information isn\u2019t even accurate and yet we have no means to correct that misinformation.
\nI don\u2019t think I have the right to know about the time my co-worker was stopped by the police for public drunkenness. I don\u2019t have the right to mine the internet for juicy pieces of gossip. And spare me the argument about freedom of speech and freedom of access to publicly available information. This isn\u2019t about the public\u2019s right to know. It\u2019s about the public\u2019s right to be nosy. And that\u2019s not a right.
\nWe should not be able to satiate our prurient interests at the expense of the privacy of others.
\nIn the political context \u2013 where reputation is everything \u2013 the Google search engine is especially dangerous. Look at Rob Ford. An arrest and conviction for drunk driving from sometime in the nineties reared its ugly head during the 2010 election. Newspapers ran multiple stories – replete with mug shot photos \u2013 in the weeks leading up to the election.
\nI guess his drunkenness is relevant now, but at the time, it was a decade old conviction that had little to do with the current campaign but figured prominently in discussions of his \u201clegitimacy\u201d as a mayoral candidate.
\nHe\u2019s not the only politician to suffer the indignities of indiscriminate data mining. Political leaders of every stripe have seen video clips of themselves from years ago, dusted off and presented as commentary on their current abilities. It isn\u2019t right.
\nPersonally, I don\u2019t care if Hudak, Horwath or Wynne drank to excess in university. I don\u2019t care if they wore an inappropriate Hallowe\u2019en costume when they were 16. And I don\u2019t care if they lost their house in the \u201992 recession because they couldn\u2019t pay their bills.
\nI care about what they stand for, right now. What they will do with my tax dollars for the betterment of my community.
\nOn June 12, think about which leader, which party best represents you \u2013 what\u2019s important to you.
\nAnd then, cast your ballot for the best choice.
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved, because this is \u2013 after all \u2013 Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Google has just begun the process of wading through the 10s of thousands of requests from folks in Europe who are exercising their newly found \u201cright to be forgotten.\u201d The European Union\u2019s high court ruled recently that people have a right to demand that search engines like Google cut links to articles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-1P2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-11 04:20:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}