Hello Bradley,

Thank you for your comment. I think law has this extraordinary power to protect everyone, no matter the economic financial situation of the citizens. Specifically, the will provision would not be even thought by some people, only informed ones would probably consider this option. Not only imformed, but also ‘well-off’ persons could resort to it. The 300 million of ‘clients’ seems to me a deceptive figure. Internet and facebook have probably reached the most remote and poorest places, I think of cyber-cafes in African countries for example. Not sure those users could consider legal services. Beyond the economic parameter, the cultural one is also pregnant with the difficulty to formalize such provisions when customs in a given country place a huge stress on heritage and does not even recognize a right to privacy. Also, a probable perverse effect to consider generalizing such a process is to offer facebook and other social networks an affirmative defense based on the absence of such a provision in a person’s will. Apart from making the discussion about such a provision legally mandatory when drafting a will, the risk is to allow, implicitly, facebook and other social tools to keep confidential information, consented through silence, ie an absent provision.

Thus I do think a general and universal right to oblivion is a better alternative in terms of efficiency.

-- KamelB - 28 Dec 2009

Hello Juvaria,

Thank you also for your comment. As you know the word limit prevents to discuss both issues in a torough manner, but I think your point is worth developing. Contrary to Google, Facebook offers all the features of a modern burial place. While the latter offers only information on a person, facebook gives the opportunity to remember one’s memory. I would have never imagined such a thing before seeing all the messages left on my friend’s wall, and it gives the extraordinary convenience for a person to drop a thought at any time of the day anywhere in the world. Virtual life started to scary me, to be honest, and the reasons why I decided to deactivate my account was mainly because I was somewhat lost between all these new landmarks internet offers. Coming back to the discussion, the distinction between Facebook and Google gets irrelevant when dealing with a right to oblivion. This right would recognize a person’s virtual identity to be elapsed, be on a social network or a search engine. To what extent ? For how long ? From when ? Even our politicians still ignore it, and the network lobbies seem to be active in delaying the debate. But maybe all together, if interested, could determine the shape of this right.

-- KamelB - 28 Dec 2009