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Facebook Says EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' Would Harm Privacy
judgecorp writes "The European Commission has proposed a "right to be forgotten" online, which would allow users to remove personal data they had shared. The idea has had a lot of criticism, and now Facebook claims it would actually harm privacy. Facebook says the proposal would require social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites — but privacy advocates say Facebook has misunderstood what the proposal is all about."
No, no, you misunderstand. Remember that adage "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Well, all Facebook has is privacy intrusion so of course the only way to enhance privacy is to intrude on it. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Sadly, I think you hit the nail right on the head.
From FB's perspective, this would harm your privacy, because FB will have to find even more creative and treacherous ways to invade user privacy to make up for the fact that users could, at any time, choose to have said data removed. I could easily imagine them creating multiple shell corporations that really "store" your data, and then when you ask to have your data removed they simply say "sorry, we don't store your data, one or more of our many affiliate corporations store and manage user data .. you'll have to submit your requests to them..."
.... and took it upon themselves to post information about me on-line. So as a non-FB user, I have every right to be forgotten when I never gave them (the user or Facebook) permission to put information about me out there. I didn't create an account. I tell everyone I know to not put information about me on Facebook or on any social network, but when someone else takes it upon themselves to post info about me, now FB claims that they own that data.
This is where I have big issues with Privacy laws and companies who data mine and then sell that data.
Don't I have every right to be forgotten, since I went out of my way to avoid being "remembered"?
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.