Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
This discussion seems to be hugely focusing on the criminal record argument and I'm not sure why. What about the other questions?
Who's paying for all this and who decides who's competent to make the decisions?
How many people do the EU courts expect Google and others to employ to handle the possibly vast stream of take down requests? Are the national/supra national powers that be prepared to write the cheques to pay for the people in the official offices to handle the appeals when Google and others say no?
Who do we trust to decide whether or not something is in the public interest? The ruling clearly states:
"this balance may however depend, in specific cases, on the nature of the information in question and its sensitivity for the data subject’s private life and on the interest of the public in having that information, an interest which may vary, in particular, according to the role played by the data subject in public life."
Is Google going to decide this? And by Google I mean a shortish checklist and some people employed by a private company?
This is censorship (no point arguing about that), censorship is normally handled by officials appointed by elected bodies, this is important as it means a changing public results in changing standards. I don't want John P. Google making those decisions.
When David Laws MP, current Schools & Cabinet minister, decides that with an election coming up maybe the public hasn't go any more right to know that he fiddled his expenses by paying a huge amount of money to his secret lover as rent for a room he would have been living in anyway (~£1000/month for 8 years) and sends a list of links he thinks shouldn't be easily available to the general public, what level of competence do we feel the decision maker should have?
How low a pay grade for the person who removes the Wiki article from Googles results?
I mean obviously Google/others would be unlikely to publish a list of take down requests, successful or unsuccessful, as doing so sort of defeats the object of the process in the first place ("this information will self destruct in 5 seconds"). So how do we know that person A has managed to censor their past against the public interest. How do we know that person B tried to and failed.
The Tories/Cameron only recently appointed a person to an important public body dealing with important investment decisions, we then find out they have a history of bankruptcy, bad decision making, etc. Who decides who censors that.
This is a classic case, everyone here and in the courts knows who should be making these decisions. A appointed body, appointed by an elected body. With a set of rules, more than sufficient staffing, pan-eu powers, bag loads of legal advice, a carefully worked out list of actions and processes and utter transparency.
Problem: that's expensive and hard work and to be honest other than banging on about it from time to time to make themselves look caring these people don't really give a shit.
Solution: make an unelected private company the bad guy and get them to arbitrarily clean up the mess.