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AGENDA
○ It would be a big mistake for the EU’s highest court to
establish a “right to be forgotten”
THE BLOOMBERG VIEW
For more commentary, go to
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINA DAURA
Early next year, the European Union’s highest court is
expected to rule on one of the internet’s most controversial
topics: the right to be forgotten. The judges should curb their
ambition, lest they open a global can of worms.
The right, enshrined in privacy law, allows Europeans
to demand that information about them be removed from
online search results if it’s outdated, irrelevant, or “exces-
sive.” The case in question involves a dispute between Google
and French regulators, who in 2015 ordered the company to
respect this right on all its sites—not just .
Google naturally objects. So does much of the tech indus-
try, a wide swath of civil society, and the EU itself. Rightly
so: Extending the right to be forgotten globally threatens free
speech, burdens private companies, intrudes on sovereignty,
and is fraught with risks.
Censoring lawful and factual information is dubious on
principle and lawed as a way to protect privacy. It’s also a sub-
stantial imposition: Since 2014, Google has had to adjudicate
more than 727,000 delisting requests, spanning some 2.8 mil-
lion web addresses. Each must be evaluated by humans.
Google has no obvious aptitude for making such judgment
calls. And countries naturally have varying preferences about
AThreat to the Internet how to balance free speech and privacy. Just three places—
France, Germany, and the U.K.—generate 51 percent of all
delisting requests, for instance, while Greeks barely assert
the right at all. In the U.S., enforcing the right could well be
unconstitutional. Confronting such a complicated and nuanced
challenge is a matter for legislatures, not private companies.
A related worry is that this idea could spread. Authoritarian
governments would like to control information beyond their
borders. Will Google respect similar demands from Turkey?
Or enforce Thailand’s lèse-majesté law? An apt phrase is “race
to the bottom”: Countries with the most severe restrictions
would efectively determine policy worldwide. Although that
would beneit no one, it’s a fully logical outcome of this case.
Yet a ruling against Google won’t do much for privacy.
France’s regulator asserts the right is meaningless if informa-
tion still turns up on searches conducted through a VPN or by
manually using overseas versions of Google. But fewer than
1 percent of searches in France evade Google’s measures this
way. This global decree would accomplish nearly nothing.
This case is useful in one regard: It’s magnifying a wors-
ening global tension. A growing number of jurisdictions are
attempting to exploit tech companies to export their own
laws and values. Europe’s new privacy regime, for instance,
applies to all companies worldwide that touch the data of
European citizens. No good can come of this. The internet
works so splendidly precisely because it’s borderless; com-
mandeering platforms to enforce national priorities will
jeopardize that openness for everyone.
Republic of Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has
vowed to call a snap election if he doesn’t win parliamentary
support immediately to change the country’s name to North
Macedonia. Without the name change, Greece will continue
to block the country’s accession to NATO and the EU.
⊲ The International
Monetary Fund releases
its annual global growth
outlook on Oct. 9. Early
signs show reason for
pessimism.
⊲ American pastor Andrew
Brunson is due in Turkish
court on terror charges on
Oct. 12. The U.S. has sought
to have him released before
that date.
⊲ Moody’s is set to review
its credit rating for South
Africa on Oct. 12, but it may
delay until Finance Minister
Nhlanhla Nene presents his
budget on Oct. 24.
⊲ Stockholders of Sky Plc
have until Oct. 11 to tender
their shares to Comcast at
the takeover price of £17.28
($22.43) per share.
⊲ A panel of top climate
scientists convened by the
United Nations will publish
a report on Oct. 8 that’s
expected to recommend
drastic cuts in coal use.
⊲ Singapore Airlines will
revive a 19-hour Newark-
Singapore route on Oct. 11—
retaking the world’s longest
flight by besting Qantas’s
18-hour Auckland-Doha trip.
⊲ A Country Is a Country Is a Country
Bloomberg Businessweek October 8, 2018