Google and the “right to be forgotten”: Where is the Obama Administration?

[Commentary] It must be getting lonely for Google in the battle over Europe’s increasingly extraterritorial demands regarding the (misnamed) “right to be forgotten.” As Europe raises the stakes yet again, Google is still not seeing any support from the Obama Administration.

The key question is why the Obama Administration hasn’t taken a stand and stepped in to defend the legitimate interests of a beleaguered US company -- and more broadly the principle of allowing accurate, public data to move freely across borders, without encountering censorship or parochial restrictions. These are the goals for the Internet that the US is touting as essential for the proposed US-EU free trade agreement. And the EU’s escalating protectionist, extraterritorial demands on the “right to be forgotten” directly flout such ambitions. Either on a separate bilateral basis, or in the context of the US-EU FTA negotiations, the Obama Administration should take a strong stand against arbitrary “delisting” of accurate, already published data, and the fragmentation of the Internet inherent in French regulatory demands.

[Claude Barfield is a former consultant to the Office of the US Trade Representative]