The Right to Be Forgotten: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Viviane Reding's (three-time European Commissioner) muscular speeches advocating a right to be forgotten for Europeans kick-started a ruckus that has pitched the European Union (EU) against the US and privacy activists against Big Data advocates. This issue gained momentum in May 2014, when an appeal by Google Spain against a decision of the Spanish Data Protection Authority (DPA), la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), was rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), thereby enshrining the right to be forgotten in law. This paper discusses in depth considers the right to be forgotten, including its potential ramifications and successes.