Inventor of the World Wide Web Thinks ‘Right to be Forgotten’ is “Dangerous”




/ 9 years ago

Tim Berners-Lee Thought for Day

Europe’s new ‘right to be forgotten’ law is designed to protect people’s privacy, allowing them, through a court ruling, to have information about them excised from the internet. Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the worldwide web, however, believes that ‘right to be forgotten’ is a bad thing, one that erodes free speech and history.

“This right to be forgotten — at the moment, it seems to be dangerous,” said Berners-Lee at the LeWeb conference on Wednesday. “The right to access history is important.”

The EU ruling obliges search engines – such as Bing, Yahoo, and Google – to scrub from its search results specific entries covered by a ‘right to be forgotten’ verdict, to protect people from stigmatisation. The ‘right to be forgotten’ law has been used, for example, to impede access to so-called ‘revenge porn’ sites. Berners-Lee continued, “It’s our society. We build it. We can define the rules about how to use data. That’s much better than trying to pretend a thing never happened.” Luckily, the European Parliament disagrees, considering potential  access to damaging or distressing information online to be the true “danger”.

Source: CNET


Topics: , ,

Support eTeknix.com

By supporting eTeknix, you help us grow and continue to bring you the latest newsreviews, and competitions. Follow us on FacebookTwitter and Instagram to keep up with the latest technology news, reviews and more. Share your favourite articles, chat with the team and more. Also check out eTeknix YouTube, where you'll find our latest video reviews, event coverage and features in 4K!

Looking for more exciting features on the latest technology? Check out our What We Know So Far section or our Fun Reads for some interesting original features.

eTeknix Facebook eTeknix Twitter eTeknix Instagram eTeknix Instagram
  • Be Social With eTeknix

    Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Reddit RSS Discord Patreon TikTok Twitch
  • Features


Send this to a friend
})