Right to be forgotten? Forget about it

[Commentary] The European Court of Justice ruled against Google in a landmark case about the so-called “right to be forgotten.”

The Court took aim at a very real problem: the fact that an individual’s information can be made available online without his or her consent, and once there, may remain accessible indefinitely.

But its solution threatens to harm the flow of information online without actually protecting privacy in any measurable way. The ultimate effect of this decision is to undermine the Internet’s strongest value proposition: its ability to dramatically reduce information costs.

[Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]