Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Worse for who? Allowing Google to render someone permanently unemployable based on ancient or false information is definitely not "better".


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.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16822093

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27423527

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3156779/More-280-000...

[3] see paragraph 3 http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/article-17-right-to-eras...




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: