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EU Resists US Lobbying As Privacy War Looms
judgecorp writes "The European Commission is resisting pressure from US firms and public bodies designed to derail its privacy proposals, which include the 'right to be forgotten' that would allow users to demand their data be removed from Internet sites. Facebook and others oppose the right to be forgotten as it would interfere with their ability to market stuff at friends and connections of their users."
Exactly: after all, what is lobbying? No, the nice gentleman from facebook is not trying to buy my vote on this matter. We are simply good friends who like to take lunch together. Only I have a chronic habit of forgetting my wallet, but he's more than happy to foot the bill. He's also quite fond of my wife, and loves to treat her to the occasional gift of exquisite diamonds and spa trips. But it's okay: he never tries to influence my vote. We're just friends.
You cannot. Because they do not exist. "Welcome breath of fresh air"? Er no, the Commission has the strange idea that citizens deserve to have their rights protected more than corporations deserve the freedom to take them away. That is why the UK neocons want out of the EU: it stands up for ordinary people.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I don't know where you got the impression that this was about a right to completely scrub oneself from every server on the internet with a magic button. It's about the right to tell a web site, to which you have previously provided information, that it must remove that information.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The European Commission do indeed do lots of stupid things but I think anything aimed at giving users greater privacy and control over their personal information is a good thing.
The EC makes shit tons of good stuff that you never hear about. A lot more than bad stuff, in fact.
The EC's biggest problem stems from EU governments that actively lobby it to pass regulations and directives on unpopular topics. Local politicians seldom mention that their great new reform is a mere transcription into local law of an EU directive (aka something they're obligated to do). In contrast, they'll sure as hell blame EU technocrats (which, incidentally, they named) for coming up with directives that force them to pass much needed yet highly unpopular reforms.
A case in point is the recent lashing out at the EU over deficit reduction. No politician gets elected in the EU by promising to axe the public sector, axe entitlement programs, raise taxes, and so on. The EU stability pact, in this light, is a blessing: they get to do all that with a convenient scapegoat. Hollande's position on it during the French presidential campaign, in this regard, was exemplary of EU demagoguery. He posed for voters, promising that he'd renegotiate the pact. Upon being elected, he quacked around for a few weeks, in an effort to disguise his pig of a bluff into a not-too-ugly princess. And, now, he can now freely blame his predecessor and the EU to pass the highly unpopular reforms that he knew were much needed from the start. (Whether he actually does remains an open question, but I'd opine that he has little choice.)