Why Google's Takedown of News Links in the EU Is a Good Thing

[Commentary] Because the European Union has recognized a "right to be forgotten," it is now possible for European citizens to request that Google remove links to stories that provide information about their lives.

This means that the BBC and other news outlets are starting to get notices from Google informing them that some of their content will no longer come up in Google searches.

There are two ways to look at this.

The first response, which we will no doubt hear from Google itself, is that an overweening EU government is giving its squeamish citizens the power to edit history. "It's just like Orwell's 1984," we will no doubt hear, "We cannot let the record of the past be deleted just because some people are uncomfortable with it!" This response makes sense only if you already equate what comes up in a Google search with an objective record of history.

The second way of thinking about Google's takedown notices to the press in the EU is to see them as reminders that while we allow one big player to be the effective gatekeepers of all our information, we have no right to be outraged over how its behavior or the consequences of its behavior might distort our collective view of the world.

The furor over Google's removal of news links in the EU will, I hope, alert people to the dangers of allowing a single, commercially motivated entity to effectively be the sole gatekeeper and organizer of the Web's information.

[Leatherwood Slifka Fellow at the Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy, & Education at Fordham University]