The right to be forgotten is, in many ways, a challenging subject to analyze.

If someone

says something inaccurate or harmful about you to anyone who asks, you would justifiably be

upset. You might even go up and say something to them about it. However, you could not force

them to stop talking about you. You might even them give them more ammunition if the

confrontation was too adversarial. You shrug it off and think that is no big deal. Only so many

people could be asking this one guy about you. He could only give so many people his negative

opinion. Now imagine that guy was used by the majority of the world to answer their questions.

Your employers, dates, and prospective clients all get their initial information about you from

this one guy with a negative opinion of you. That would probably end up with people getting a

lot of information, accurate or inaccurate, about you that you do not want them to get.

The question then becomes, do you have the right to suppress negative information or

opinions about yourself? The information still exists, you just make it harder to access. I believe

the answer to that question is no. Negative opinions and information are part of having the right

to free speech and free press. If negative information was allowed to be filtered, people would be

able to unsavory things with relative social impunity. The right to information is a basic tenet of

democracy and allows for the most informed public as possible.

If individuals gain the right to be forgotten, what if companies follow suit? Companies

have lobbied in the past to be treated as individuals with free speech rights. It is far from out of

the question that they would try to suppress negative information if the opportunity arose. People

cannot form informed opinions or make informed decisions when they are not informed. The

only way to insure the public remains informed, is to not suppress the information they have

access to, whether it be good or bad.