Trying to balance privacy, free speech on Internet

Should people have the right to delete information about themselves online?

That’s the political minefield the European Commission is charging through. Late last month, the executive body for the European Union proposed a strict set of privacy rules that included a "right to be forgotten." The regulations must be approved by member states, but the language sent a jolt through companies such as Google and Facebook, which have built business models dependent on user data and could face multimillion-dollar fines for infractions. Scholars, lawyers and privacy advocates are also scrambling to sort through the implications of the rules, which set up a pitched battle between the right to privacy and freedom of expression online.