The Memory: Europe and the Right to Be Forgotten

On Monday, the most powerful search engine in the world is learning a new word, and the word is memory. Europe's highest court ruled last week that Google must remove links to outdated or irrelevant information about a person upon request, and the ruling created a right that the internet had never known: the right to be forgotten. The judgment is the May 2014 story, and the story is the lesson: the internet remembers everything, and the law has decided that some memories must fade.

The Memory is the subject of this article: how the case reached the court, what the court decided, why it matters for every company that runs a search engine, and what it says about the collision between the web's nature and Europe's values. The ruling came on Tuesday, May 13, and the reaction has been running ever since. This is the story of the ruling, and the story is about the moment the eternal archive met the human right to a fresh start.

1. The Complaint

The complaint began with a Spanish lawyer and a house, and the house was the problem. Mario Costeja Gonzalez searched for his own name and found a link to an auction notice from 1998, a notice about the sale of a home that had been repossessed because of a debt he had long since paid. The information was true, and the information was old, and the information was the shadow that followed his name. He asked the newspaper to remove it, and the newspaper said no, and he asked Google, and Google said no.

The complaint then went to the Spanish data protection agency, and the agency sided with the lawyer. The agency ordered Google to remove the links, and Google appealed, and the case climbed through the courts until it reached the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest court in Europe. The question was simple, and the question was enormous: should a search engine be required to forget? The complaint was the beginning, and the beginning was a man and his name.

2. The Court

The court answered the question on Tuesday, May 13, in a judgment that made legal history. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Google, as a search engine, is a "controller" of personal data, and that the operator of a search engine must remove links to information that is inadequate, irrelevant, or excessive, upon request, subject to exceptions for the public interest. The right was grounded in the European Data Protection Directive of 1995, the law that had been written before most of the web existed.

The judgment was the first time the court had ruled that a search engine, not just the publisher of a page, has responsibility for the personal data it indexes. The reasoning was about the power of the search engine: the page might exist on some obscure site, and the search engine was the door that made the page visible to the world. The door was the controller, and the controller was the obligation. The judgment was the legal foundation, and the foundation was the right.

3. The Right

The right to be forgotten was born in the coverage of the ruling, and the name captured the imagination. The right was not literally the right to erase the past; it was the right to ask that certain links no longer appear in the results for a search of one's own name. The pages could remain on the internet, and the links could be removed, and the removal was the balance: the information was not destroyed, and the access was limited.

The right was also the European answer to the nature of the internet. The web was designed to remember everything, and the memory was the problem for the people whose past was not what they wanted it to be. The criminal record, the bad review, the old debt, the youthful mistake, all of it followed the name forever, and the right was the tool to draw the line. The right was the principle, and the principle was the fresh start.

4. The Reaction

The reaction to the ruling was a war of words, and the words were about the meaning of the web. The supporters of the ruling called it a victory for privacy and human dignity, the recognition that people are more than the worst thing they have ever done. The opponents called it censorship, a rewriting of history, a tool for the powerful to hide their past, and an attack on the free exchange of information. The reaction was the split, and the split was the debate.

The reaction also came from the companies that would have to implement the ruling. Google said the ruling was disappointing and would lead to the removal of links that had nothing to do with privacy, and the company began building the process to handle the requests. The search engines, the publishers, and the free speech advocates all had their positions, and the positions were the beginning of the implementation. The reaction was the argument, and the argument was the story.

5. The Process

The process was the practical problem, and the problem was the scale. Google would receive requests from across Europe, and each request would have to be judged: was the information inadequate, irrelevant, or excessive? Was there a public interest in keeping the link? The company set up an online form for the requests and announced an advisory council of experts to help draw the lines. The process was the beginning of the balancing, and the balancing was the work.

The process was also the source of the new questions. Would the removals apply only to the European versions of the search engine, or to the whole world? Would the pages be delisted, or would they be deleted? The ruling had created the right, and the details were left to be worked out, and the working out would take years. The process was the beginning of the implementation, and the implementation was the test of the right.

6. The Balance

The balance was the heart of the ruling, and the heart was the exception. The court said the right was not absolute, that the public interest could outweigh the right to be forgotten, especially for people in public life. The politician could not hide the scandal, and the criminal could not hide the conviction, and the journalist could not be silenced, when the public interest demanded the information remain visible. The balance was the guardrail, and the guardrail was the law.

The balance was also the practical problem for the companies. The judgment did not say exactly where the line was, and the line had to be drawn case by case, and the drawing was the judgment call. The search engine became the judge of what the public needed to know, and the judge's role was the controversy. The balance was the principle, and the principle was the tension between the memory and the fresh start.

7. The Lesson

The lesson of the ruling was about the power of the search engine, and the power was the point of the judgment. The search engine was not a neutral mirror of the internet; it was the gatekeeper of attention, the door that decided what the world saw. The court ruled that the gatekeeper had a duty, and the duty was the recognition of the power. The lesson was that the companies that control the doors of the web are not neutral, and the neutrality is the choice.

The lesson was also about the difference between the American and the European views of the internet. The American tradition saw the free flow of information as the highest value, and the European tradition saw the protection of the individual as the foundation. The ruling was the European tradition asserting itself on the global stage, and the assertion was the beginning of a new era of internet regulation. The lesson was the values, and the values were the collision.

8. The Future

The future of the ruling would be the implementation, and the implementation would be the story of the next years. The requests would come by the thousands, the lines would be drawn, the cases would be argued, and the right would be shaped by the practice. The search engines would build the machinery of forgetting, and the machinery would be the legacy of the ruling. The future was the work, and the work was the balancing.

The future was also the lesson in the making. The internet had been built to remember, and the law had decided that some memories must fade, and the fading was the new frontier. The companies, the regulators, and the citizens of Europe would learn the limits of the right, and the learning would define the digital age. The ruling is the May 2014 story, and the story is the lesson: the internet remembers everything, and the law has decided that some memories must fade. The right to be forgotten was born on Tuesday, and the memory of the internet will never be the same. The search engines will draw the lines, and the courts will review the lines, and the lines will be the law in the making. The companies that learn to balance the memory and the fresh start will be the companies that earn the trust of the continent. The balancing is the future, and the future is the work.

Tags

#technology #business