The word must amount to 800 words minimum, no upper level. including introduction
Assignment Task:
You are required to research and discuss how the �Right to be forgotten� ruling (C131/12) may affect
the quality of information shared on the Internet. Use Harvard referenced case studies and academic
theories to lend validity to your ideas.
The word must amount to 800 words minimum, no upper level. Your mark will be reduced if below word
count.
Your work could consider the implications for private individuals, businesses, politicians or those with
criminal records. Discuss how the ruling is being received and enforced by search engines and news
publications. Are there differences in international levels of enforcement? There are academic level
studies and case studies available on the subject – what are they saying about how the ruling will affect
the quality of information available on the Internet?
Constructive critical analysis: Appropriate use of (800 words minimum) to describe current issues and
future trends in topic area. Demonstrates that you have consulted widely and can describe the key issues
in your topic � use case studies and referenced sources to substantiate your arguments.
Provides alternative views on your topic.
Language and grammar is appropriate to the audience and the topic.
Accurate use of Harvard style referencing
Extra credit for clarity of description of technically complex concepts.
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“Right to be forgotten” ruling (C131/12)
Internet has become one of the medium through which individuals’ access to information
on various aspects that affects them. However, court rulings may affect the information that
people receive via internet. The right to be forgotten ruling on may 12 against Google by the
European Court of Justice is one of the rulings that will trigger a number of changes in
information transmission (Coy, 2014). The ruling requires the operators of search engine
(Google) to remove links from person’s name to third party information upon their request if the
information is irrelevant, inadequate or excessive in relation the purposes of the processing at
issue. The author therefore discusses how this ruling may affect the quality of information on the
internet. It further, deliberates on the impacts of the ruling for the private individuals, politicians,
businesses and those people with criminal records among others
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The ruling will affect the quality of information shared on the internet in many ways. One
of the ways this will affect the quality of information is that information will not be provided and
this will hinder people from accessing information that is relevant and important to them. People
will not get information especially if the information is perceived to be negative or affecting
certain parties (Coy, 2014). This therefore, hinders or curtails the freedom of expression and
accessible or right to access to information shared through the internet.
The ruling would also produce a censoring effect in the company. Because the company-
Google will not wish to be fined, hence due to the act, Google may end up deleting whole
information as opposed to facing the fines. This action will lead to a serious ‘chilling effect’
hence information will not be provided on the internet and this would be curtailing freedom of
accessibility to information.
Information shared on internet will not be of quality, as it will lose objectivity. People
will not provide sufficient information because they will have fears of their links being deleted.
Therefore, most of the people will only use rumors to make their decisions and this will affect
the way people make decisions and will curtail their level of understanding on various aspects in
the society (Mantelero, 2013).
The act will as well lead to neutral search results that will produce patchy and biased
results hence compromise on the integrity of the internet-based information. The internet users
will not believe and trust or have confident in the information they access through internet (Voss,
2014). This doubt would therefore, reduce the level that people or users will use this information.
The ruling has implications for private individuals. The ruling means that an individual
that feels that information on the internet pertaining to them portrays them negatively will
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demand removal of such information. This therefore means that people will be denied the
freedom of accessing information through internet. If such links will not be viewed through
search engines, then the users will not be in a position to access to such information (Mantelero,
2013). The ruling therefore, gave individual persons more freedom to demand for removal of
information pertaining to them. Furthermore, the ruling impacts on these individuals as it will
discourage posting of information on private individuals especially projecting them in negative
manner. Lack of such information will deny people the freedom of knowing or understanding the
way people live in a society.
This ruling will also affect the businesses. Business use internet as one of their platforms
to reach to their customers. Internet has become one of the most important channels of
marketing and doing business and with ruling; it will impact on the information sharing (Crovitz,
2010). Many of the business links will be deleted especially when they are suspected to be
carrying information that is not required by the law. Such incidences will reduce their reach and
definitely affects their business returns. Furthermore, Google Company may delete business
information wholesomely to avoid any fines or penalties. Such acts will affect businesses in
negative way.
Politicians are as well important internet users that this ruling will affect. Internet has
been found to be one of the tools that politicians use to campaign and convey their agendas to the
public. Activists as well use the platform to voice their concerns to politicians. Therefore, this
ruling will have significant implications on how information will be shared. Politic rivalry will
increase especially if some politician posts scanty information about their rivalry. Such acts will
see information about certain politicians deleted without their knowledge hence deterring them
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from reaching many people. Furthermore, activism will also be censured on the internet hence
will make it difficult for the information to circulate to many individuals to trigger support.
People will criminal records will also be affected by the ruling. They will now have a
privilege to demand for delete of any information pertaining to their past criminal records. The
ruling will see a lot of information on criminal censured and this will contribute to increase
criminal activities (Fioretti, 2014). People will be denied the freedom of sharing or accessing to
such information and it will therefore become a bit challenging to deal with crimes as well as
identify them. Criminals will get reprove and those that may have left crime may as well get a
reprove as they will not be found on the internet
Stakeholders have received the ruling differently. Some support the ruling while other
has criticized it as breaching the freedom of the people. The line between privacy and right of
information seems to be glimpse (Ball, 2014). Enforcement of the ruling is underway but search
engines such as Google have cried foul. The Executive chairperson of Google Eric Schmidt
claimed that the balance struck by the court between privacy and the right to know was wrong
(Skovic, 2014). Even as they enforce the ruling they are still evaluating the requests people are
sending and will consider whether the information is outdated and whether it is a public interest
information before making a decision of deleting the information. No significant differences
exist in international levels of enforcement of the law. Various articles and features studies are
available on the internet discussing about the ruling. These academic studies provide in-depth
analysis of the ruling stating the benefits and drawbacks. Some state that the ruling will affect the
quality of information while other refute
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In conclusion, I do believe that the court ruling aimed at improving the way information
is shared through the internet. However, it would have required more time to incorporate the
ideas and views of stakeholders. Private individuals, businesses, politicians and people with
criminal records have their rights but other people as well have the right to free speech and to
access information. With the ruling, I believe quality of sharing internet information will be
negatively affected.
References list
Ball, J 2014, ‘Right to be forgotten’ ruling creates a quagmire for Google et al,’
