As an organization we don't have an official position on the right to be forgotten. We are not intervenors in either the Equustek-Google case or the Facebook case. In our submission to the Privacy Commissioner's consultation, we did set out some conditions that are important and some concerns that we have about how this is currently being done in Europe.
One concern is that the intermediaries, such as Google and others, are being handed either quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial powers to decide what is or is not being removed from what is almost a utility. Google is now used as a verb. If something is not there, it tends to be considered not to exist. People don't go to page 12 or page 112 to try to find some report on this. They play an important role, but they shouldn't be handed the authority to determine this. That's one consideration.
We do have others, but we want to make sure that if something is removed there's some sort of notation, some some sort of indication that what you're getting.... When you look something up, you're assuming you're getting what is there. If things have been removed—and I'm afraid I can't provide you with a detailed description of what that would look like—there should be an indication that what you're getting as a result of this search is not everything, if this is a road we are heading down.