You are What Google Says You are: The Right to Be Forgotten and Information Stewardship

International Review of Information Ethics, Vol. 17, July 2012

10 Pages Posted: 30 Sep 2012

See all articles by Meg Leta Jones

Meg Leta Jones

Georgetown University - Communication, Culture, and Technology

Date Written: 2012

Abstract

The right to be forgotten is a proposed legal response to the potential harms caused by easy digital access to information from one’s past, including those to moral autonomy. While the future of these proposed laws is unclear, they attempt to respond to the new problem of increased ease of access to old personal information. These laws may flounder in the face of other rights and interests, but the social values related to moral autonomy they seek to preserve should be promoted in the form of widespread ethical information practices: information stewardship. Code, norms, markets, and laws are analyzed as possible mechanisms for fostering information stewardship. All these mechanisms can support a new user role, one of librarian - curator of digital culture, protector of networked knowledge, and information steward.

Keywords: information ethics, right to be forgotten, oblivion, information stewardship, Europe, privacy

Suggested Citation

Jones, Meg, You are What Google Says You are: The Right to Be Forgotten and Information Stewardship (2012). International Review of Information Ethics, Vol. 17, July 2012, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2154353

Meg Jones (Contact Author)

Georgetown University - Communication, Culture, and Technology ( email )

3520 Prospect St NW
Suite 311
Washington, DC 20057
United States

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