Would you like the most embarrassing information about you removed from the Internet? Or at least make it more difficult to find through a search engine?
European courts have ruled that search engines, such as Google, have to honor requests to remove links with embarrassing information, unless there is a compelling public interest to maintain it.
Western Michigan University Communication Professor Sandra Borden says it’s unlikely that would ever happen in the United States. She says the ruling demonstrates different values and different legal infrastructures on the two continents. Borden says Americans tend to hold freedom of speech sacred, while in general Europeans put more value on privacy.
Borden says in the United States some businesses specialize in altering algorithms to change search results. She says the European ruling does not put the government in charge, it requires the search engines to make the decision on whether a link needs to be removed from its search results.
The concern about the “slippery slope” of infringing on free speech is legitimate according to Borden. She says the ruling in Europe should be thought of like the index in the back of a book. Borden says removing the name from the index doesn’t remove the material, but it may make it harder to search for.
Borden says the ruling in Europe may provide a “test case” that Americans can watch. She says we won’t necessarily adopt the same solutions. Borden says there are different approaches to the balance of privacy and freedom of speech. But she says it’s healthy to “at least question some of our assumptions.”
