Grant Gross reports:
Google’s refusal to implement the EU’s controversial right to be forgotten rules in the U.S. amounts to an unfair and deceptive business practice, a frequent critic of the search engine giant said.
Consumer Watchdog will file a complaint against Google with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Tuesday, said John Simpson, director of the group’s Privacy Project. The complaint will ask the FTC to rule that Google, by declining to delete search engine links on request from U.S. residents, is an unfair business practice that violates the U.S. FTC Act.
Read more on IT World.
This is such a problematic complaint that it’s hard to know where to begin. I’m one of those who might benefit if they prevail, as there are still web pages about me under my real name created 20 years ago by stalkers/detractors that would presumably no longer show up in Google searches of my name. But as much as I’d like to see some search results disappear, I don’t like the idea of making it harder to research by selectively not indexing results that those being researched might not want seen.