Few days back there was a ruling by a EU court on the 'right
to be forgotten' which went in favor of a Spanish man who had requested Google
to remove search links which pointed to articles related to his house repossession
for debt repayments. The Spaniard claimed that since this incident happened in
late nineties, it was irrelevant now, and for it to be made publicly accessible by Google, was a violation of his privacy rights.
Google took steps to comply with EU’s 'right to be forgotten' ruling. Now there is a web form available through which EU citizens can submit
their requests explaining why the link is irrelevant, outdated or
inappropriate. If approved, the link will be removed from the search results although
the pages will stay on web.
What will happen if the 'right to be forgotten' comes in
India? Google will then get inundated with requests. A major share of the
requests would be from tainted politicians, who would want the links to their
scams to be erased. That would be a humongous task for Google then, keeping in
mind the number of scams. I wonder if there would be a new law by the government
then, to deny access to the list of people who have filed such requests. The
requests would increase just before the elections because that is the time when
people do a background check of the nominees from their constituency.
Right to be forgotten would be fully exploited by people
like Raja, Kalmadi, Mayawati, Lalu (Let's take a pause here because the list is endless). However, removal of links from web would
not be fruitful for them. Who will google their past when everybody knows it?
