How the ‘right to be forgotten’ could take over the American Internet, too

Already the rage in certain European capitals, the “right to be forgotten” has slunk into the United States under the inoffensive guise of the “eraser button”: the requirement that all Web sites with registered, under-18 users allow them to nuke their prior posts when they reach adulthood. A controversial “eraser button” law has been in effect in California since May. Similar legislation is in the works in Illinois and New Jersey. And in June, Sen Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rep Joe Barton (R-TX) reintroduced an online privacy bill that would make the underage eraser button the law of the land.

This, of course, is a sentiment with which few adults disagree: The very idea of youthful hijinks is that they remain solidly, safely in our youth. The thought that the things we did as teenagers could have, in another time, trailed us forever -- preserved, like nasty insects, in little vials of amber -- has rightly horrified a certain class of upstanding, well-meaning adults who want to know what can be done. After all, these accumulated off-color jokes and Solo-cup-clenching party pics (to say nothing of the shameless Tumblr drug deals or bomb-threat tweets that earn media attention from time to time) amount to more than Internet ephemera: They’re what nearly half of all hiring managers, and a third of all college admissions officers, stand to encounter when they weigh a decision that could forever change that young person’s life.