Watch out what you do in the cyberspace!

Such kind of information, about us, our lives and those around us, is inhibiting the dark shadows of the Internet. Nesting calmly under the warmth of a server somewhere out there, it could be few kilometers away, or way across the globe. And the tools to fetch that information, to track it and to hunt for it deep in the digital world to bring them back into light are search engines. Go ahead and write your name in any of the popular search engines and you would be directed to links attached to you; your Twitter or Facebook accounts, and maybe some news links to statements you had made few years ago about a project you were supervising but never found its way to daylight. In one way or another; Internet will never forget! However, Europeans do not seem to like that. Around the mid of May, the European Union's Court of Justice has ruled that Google must listen and even comply, when regular individuals ask for certain links to be removed. A surprising decision that Google has received with "disappointment." Out of no where, the search engine giant could find itself overwhelmed with thousands of requests to remove links and articles from its search results for personal reasons, Kazinform has learnt from the Arab News. It did not take much for debates to start. The "right to be forgotten," as it becomes to be known, walks on a very thin line between the right to privacy and freedom of speech. Supporters argue that any one should be able to remove links from the Internet that are old, irrelevant, or touch on their personal privacy in anyway. Those against the ruling find it as a backdoor for those with mistakes to relieve themselves from public scrutiny. And there are those who come in the middle to say that, whether to remove such information from the Internet or not, search engines should not be asked to remove the information. Despite all that, Google finds itself legally bound to comply with the court's ruling and a couple of days ago, it had started a form available to its users in Europe to request removal of search links. Approved forms will result in removals of links without affecting the content itself. First reported cases, according to the Independent, include a scandalized politician, a man convicted of possessing images of child abuse and a doctor who wanted negative reviews about his practice to disappear. For me, I tend to agree on the free speech argument; if you have done something embarrassing and it reached the public domain, there is no one to blame but yourself. That in itself would promote self censoring and privacy awareness among people. You cannot expect to misbehave and publish inappropriate things and after realizing your folly ask search engines to do the cleaning. You better keep this in mind from the start... the Internet will never forget!