All great ethical questions have the quality of slippery slopes, and this is, IMHO, one of the most fundamentally important questions of the 21st century. About as important as the legal concept of personal property - can you own it, can others steal it or damage it, can you sell it, can people inherit it, etc.
The fact is that information is, today, more valuable than money. Indeed, look around you, companies are perfectly willing to take people's information in lieu of money. They know that they can always convert information into money later down the track.
Yet we don't have a concensus on who owns the information, for lack of a better metaphor. Is my full name and likeness my own, or some hollywood company's ? Do my weekend party antics belong to Facebook? Does Google have the right to claim and organize all the rumours about me ? If I generate information just by existing and living my life, and this information has a monetary value, isn't it mine in all its forms? Should I not have the right to control it, as well as the responsibility of it. I have such rights with my children, and such responsibilities, also with my everyday actions in conducting my life (which is exactly the information that ends up being collected).
These are not easy questions, but they are vital, and the EU / Google skirmish is a very important one. I'm a humanist. I believe laws and ethics should always be chosen by human beings, and favour human beings, at the expense of robots and legal entities such as companies and organisations, all else being equal. Of course I oppose Google on this.
The human species is going to have to grow up a little. First as an audience and consumer of the net, and realize that just because
it's on the internet (or even wikipedia) doesn't mean it's true. It also has to realize what people said in the past doesn't always
pose a true reflection of their current selves - that people change and evolve. Especially from a younger age like 13.
It doesn't work like that, which is part of the complexity. For making everyday decisions, people must make a choice all the time on what to trust, on the internet. Why? Because people's actions occur on the internet. It's the same medium. People buy things, apply for jobs, deal with their governments, and hang out among friends. On the internet. It's a wild mix of truth and false. Have you ever been on a public place early in the morning? There are janitors who clean up the trash. Otherwise we'd be knee deep in shit everywhere, everyday. Growing up and holding your nose is not an option. The internet is starting to smell. It needs janitors.
Second, it will have to grow up as individuals and realize, when you put it out there, you put it out there. And no nanny state can
fix it.
It's not as simple as you think. You haven't thought of the other side of the coin. When others put it out there (about you), it's out there too. And Laws must fix it. This is nothing new. Do you think the Jews put out stories in the world that they themselves are evil, are thieves, have crooked noses, and live like rats in filthy houses, shitting in their own kitchens while they eat? They did not, the Nazis did. And because the Nazis put it out there, it became true. As true as necessary to make ordinary people believe it, and do their bidding.
Google collects all these stories about everyone indiscriminately. Some are true, some are not. Google's actions must be stopped. There must be an ethical, legal way to clean up information over time, and it must apply to all companies, Google, your local comic book store, etc. It is an important issue, and a very difficult one. Google can stay in business, but there must be some limits. And when in doubt, I favour human beings over companies, always. YMMV, but to say it's bullshit or a non-issue is putting your head in the sand.
You suggest people should just accept the new reality, that we should live in a world where anybody can say anything about anybody, true or not, by writing it in a web page or a SQL database. Where this information can be sold, can be used to discriminate against people, can be used for statistics to make up facts and political discourses, etc. You're worried we'll end up in a nanny state if this isn't allowed. Well, I'm worried we'll end up in a Goebbelsian paradise. Thus the slippery slope.
For better or for worse, information is the new environment in which we live, in the 21st century. This environment fills up with (information) wasted, like every other environment where people live. It's starting to smell, and we must give people the right to clean it up.
