Episode 45 - Will the "Right To Be Forgotten" Rewrite History?

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the so-called European "right to be forgotten" are hot topics as summer turns to autumn. With the CCPA coming into effect on January 1, 2020 amendments to modify it abound in the legislature. Stay tuned for a final Act! Even so, the driving force behind the Act’s passage, Alistair Mactaggart, is not trusting the legislature. Watch for voters to decide directly what California’s law will be in 2020 at the same time they vote on America’s president. The EU’s "right to be forgotten". Media announced a victory for Google from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), claiming that the "right to be forgotten" under GDPR cannot be enforced outside the European Union and its 28 (soon to be 27?) countries. The ECJ’s September 24 ruling was on Google’s request for a preliminary ruling on appeal from the French Government’s 2014 order that Google delink globally its search engine from sites containing embarrassing or out of date information. The "right to be forgotten" still raises some questions. Where will the lines be drawn? Could governments order a business to remove truthful but embarrassing information about an individual gained from a police report? If the story was published in a book, do those pages need to be torn out of history? Where will the balance between freedom of the press and individual privacy land? This is a task now for courts and a risk for website and media businesses. If you have ideas for more interviews or stories, please email [email protected].