The “right to be forgotten” implicates real-life concerns about what and how much information is available to governments, corporations, policymakers, and the public. This right is at the heart of our ongoing online privacy debates: How much information do we have to share with others, and how can we control what others know about us?
But complete information, including that which one may prefer misplaced, is also about making good decisions. And while the Internet Archive does not present a complete or uniformly accurate picture of the Internet, it is nonetheless a useful tool that helps us get there. Deleting information from the searchable Internet, whether Girkin’s first-person radical boasting or third-person smear campaigns, even for good reasons, can also be viewed as a modern way of burying evidence. In an information-driven economy and society, that is a serious matter. Indeed, thorough evidence and information, or the lack thereof, can have impact far beyond the individual, as it is a necessary prerequisite to good decision-making.
