Before Google, if you wanted to find out about a person, you had to go to a library to pore through newspaper archives and public records. Now a newly-proposed UK law may force researchers back to the bookshelves – or at least to the British Library’s website.
New plans from the British government will make it easier for people to delete embarrassing or erroneous information about themselves online. UK Digital Minister Matt Hancock said in early August the government would introduce new privacy legislation that would expand “the right to be forgotten,” beyond just search engine results to any personal data held by a third party – from social media sites such as Facebook Inc to forums run by videogame companies, like Germany’s Bigpoint GmbH, which produces massively multiplayer online game Battlestar Galactica.