Privacy Part 2: The Right to Be Forgotten

February 24

The Court of Justice of the European Union made big waves last May when it ruled against Google on a claim brought by a Spanish citizen asserting a right to remove two news articles that appeared in Google search results when he searched for his own name. The case, now known as the case that recognized the “right to be forgotten,” has come to the forefront of discussions of online privacy. In today’s class, we’ll explore the “right to be forgotten,” how it applies in Europe, whether it could ever come to the United States, and how international companies address competing national balances over privacy and free speech.

We’ll also spend part of this day describing the final project for the class, and discuss how to pick a good community and issue to study for the project.

Our guest this week is Berkman staffer Adam Holland, who oversees the operations of several projects, including Chilling Effects, which tracks legal threats against online speech.

Readings

• Jeffery Rosen, "The Right to Be Forgotten," 64 Stanford Law Review Online 88 (February 13, 2012)

• Eric Posner, "We All Have the Right to Be Forgotten," Slate, May 14, 2014

• Jonathan Zittrain, "Don't Force Google to 'Forget'," New York Times, May 14, 2014

• Gail Sullivan, "'Right to be Forgotten' gets real as Google wipes stories from search results," July 3, 2014

• Jeffery Toobin, "The Solace of Oblivion," The New Yorker, September 29, 2014

Optional Readings

• Google Spain SL v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (an abridged version of the ECJ decision from May 2014 - built on the Berkman Center's own H2O Platform for online textbooks)

Class Discussion

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