We’ve written plenty before about Europe’s “Right to be Forgotten,” under which governments tell Google and other search engines to take down links to legal, public documents that are deemed embarrassing or inconvenient for the people involved. We thought four years ago that this problem wouldn’t go away, and we were rightrighttobeforgottenfrance.jpg.

We never

The on-line world is abuzz today with news from Europe’s highest court that Google will have to start removing links to certain information that some judge or bureaucrat decides is irrelevant. Even if it’s true and lawfully posted, the governments of Europe now get to decide what’s suitable to read, case by casegoogle EU right to be forgotten.jpg.

We’re

What can facts can investigators gather without violating a person’s privacy? The answer we like to give is: whatever the law allows us to gather, but that doesn’t fully answer the question.

For one thing, privacy means very different things to different societies.privacy.jpg

Criminal records are public records in the U.S. and Canada, for instance.