The government has agreed to proposals that would allow Australians to opt out of targeted advertising, require search engines to "de-index" certain information about them, and draw small businesses into Australia's privacy scheme.
The “right to be forgotten” should not be looked at as a good thing. Its reason for existing is honestly pretty gross. It’s about censoring people’s access to news if the subject of that news doesn’t like it. Literally, Google v Costeja is basically its origin, and it’s a case where Google was forced to stop linking to news articles about a person despite those articles being entirely accurate. This is bad for two reasons:
First, the news is accurate. It reported on events that had occurred—in fact, the reporting was legally mandated by the Spanish Government. This was not in dispute. Access to accurate information simply because it portrays someone in a bad light is an awful kind of censorship.
Second, it went after the wrong subject. Google’s job is to link people to websites. If someone wants information taken down, they shouldn’t be asking Google to de-index it, they should be going after the news site. If the law wants to allow the information to be made inaccessible, they should require the news site to take it down. Or better, they should be required to issue an update or retraction alongside the previously-accurate article.
The “right to be forgotten” should not be looked at as a good thing. Its reason for existing is honestly pretty gross. It’s about censoring people’s access to news if the subject of that news doesn’t like it. Literally, Google v Costeja is basically its origin, and it’s a case where Google was forced to stop linking to news articles about a person despite those articles being entirely accurate. This is bad for two reasons:
John Barilaro demonstrated you can do the same thing already, this just gives the same right to people who can’t afford a team of KCs.