Re: What bugs me
Actually, that is exactly why we do have governments etc.: to make the rules. If we each make our own, or leave it to private firms ....
Google or Bing or some other automated system run by, somewhere, people, has got no special privileges just to satisfy our prurience. Try publishing someone's ancient peccadilloes in a newspaper and see how acceptable that is.
I do not think the EU decision is suggesting a carte blanche right to have anything you like removed under all circumstances. Personal freedom is not just yours to pry; it is also mine not to have strangers using or misusing data about me that may be true, false or misleading. In Britain now there are still high-profile court cases involving newspapers prying into emails, SMSs and telephone conversations because it is generally accepted that this is not right, no matter how famous or insignificant one is.
I read it as genuinely public information, such as non-expired criminal records, is fine. Getting the partial and misleading details of some long expired civil case, that could blight a life for no good reason many years later, is not.
Should a potential or actual employer or just some nosey busibody be able to look at the messy details of your divorce? Even writers of references are restricted in what they can say, to stop wilful harm.
Your life may be blameless or your sins so egregious that you are beyond caring. For the rest of us, privacy is important, whether it is merely because I have a bizarre reading taste or keep three mistresses and a boyfriend on the side. No doubt there will be hard cases. But, hard cases make bad law and they certainly do not justify the loss of personal freedom and rights to a private life that the opponents support.
Why would the opinion of Google carry any weight? It is just a private, advertising company making money out of other peoples lives and intellectual property.