I think that simply deleting references to information is a crude way to solve this problem. People who want to continue to bias against ex-convicts (like landlords and employers) will use background check services that aren’t regulated here, but the general public will be deprived easy access to information. This seems ripe for abuse, especially for government officials.
Wouldn't it be far worse to delete the original information? It's better to just make it harder for someone's life to be ruined by it, don't you think?
Employers go to Google to find this information because it is free, not because they are randomly searching or because Google is pushing this information to them. I believe many (maybe even most) will simply switch to other services that provide background checks. IANAL but I don’t see how this ruling anticipates this.
Now, you could argue that services like that will be less susceptible to false information. I don’t know why that would be the case and there seems to be some evidence against it on the recent “checkr” funding thread on hacker news[0]
This is a blunt technological tool to fix a delicate social issue. The information is still there, but behind a service. I believe deleting the information is already not in the public’s interests [1][2], and it looks like the law agrees to an extent[3], but the solution they came up with effective puts a tollbooth in front of it.
