Good Lord! Lords forget their own right to be forgotten analysis

This week, the House of Lords adopted a report on the Google/Spain case. In their report, they made it very clear that the nonsense around the term “the right to be forgotten” is indeed simply that… nonsense.

The Minister described the expression as “an inaccurate and unhelpful gloss on what happened”. There is no right to be forgotten. All our other witnesses who addressed the issue agreed.*

So far, so sane.

The Lords then appear to have reflected on finding a catchy headline. After all, what is the point in putting out a press release if nobody publishes it? What would be a good headline, they must have wondered… what phrase does the press like so much that none of the facts of the case matter? The choice was obvious… the inaccurate and unhelpful “right to be forgotten”.

‘Right to be forgotten’ is misguided in principle and unworkable in practice, say Lords .

So, when it comes to Google/Spain, the old adage remains faithfully respected and unforgotten – never, ever let the truth get in the way of a good story. Even, it seems, if you have already described your own misrepesentation of the facts as “inaccurate and unhelpful”.

*Emphasis added.