Digital Footprints

By Alex Mather

Remember those photographs you took doing something you’d rather forget with someone you can’t remember in a location you can’t recall? You discarded the originals, of course. And what about that exchange of e-mails that got out of hand and which you now deeply regret. You deleted them of course, so it’s all in the past.

Or is it?

If you posted the pictures to a social network like Facebook or e-mailed from an address like Gmail or Hotmail, then all your photographs are still in cyberspace, eternally circulating, awaiting recall at an embarrassingly inappropriate moment. And those e-mails? Well, don’t forget that Gmail and Hotmail have the right to read anything and everything you post on their services, keep it forever and use it as they see fit to ‘provide their service’. As things stand at the moment, you have no right to be forgotten and no right to have your foolish indiscretions forgotten either – even if you delete your accounts. If anyone shared your stuff, reposted or quoted it in an email then it remains out there.

In this groundbreaking paper, Alex Mather explores how this all came about and proposes that the law should be changed to allow ‘the right to delete’ our entire digital footprint and to be forgotten. There are, of course, those who disagree with Mather’s position, claiming that the public has a right to know, especially if you are public figure, but they singularly fail to justify why the public has a right to know about the average person for ever.

With half the world using the internet for research and communication, and something like1 in 7 people in the world using Facebook, this debate is only just beginning. But already, lives have been destroyed, reputations ruined, and permanent damage done. Whether you are an experienced cybernaut, a concerned adult, or a young person in perpetual contact with your cloud of cyberfriends, this paper is a ‘must read’.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White & MacLean Publishing
• Release date: Feb 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9782930583266

Book preview

Digital Footprints

Social networks and the right to delete

by Alex Mather

First published in Belgium in 2012 by

White & MacLean Publishing

Copyright 2012 Alex Mather

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author

and should not be considered legal advice nor construed

as being legal opinion.

All rights reserved.

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Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

Published by White & MacLean Publishing at Smashwords

Smashwords edition: ISBN 978-2-930583-26-6

Cover design: Arati Devasher

www.aratidevasher.com

White & MacLean Publishing

La Houlette 3

B-1470 Baisy-Thy

Belgium

www.whiteandmaclean.eu

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section I – Social Networking Technology: usage and capabilities

Social Networks

Web-based Email

Section II – Libel, reputation and privacy

Section III – SNS and harm to reputation in practice

Section IV – How this is different: instant, global and forever

Section V – Recommendations: how to manage your online reputation

Section VI – Balancing act: a public interest in retaining data

Righting the Social Networking Wrongs: establishing a ‘right to delete’

Bibliography

Biography of the author

Endnotes

Digital Footprints

Social networks and the right to delete

Introduction

Good name in man and woman…is the immediate jewel of their souls. But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.1

William Shakespeare

Social networking sites are the websites that we use to let others know exactly who we are or to establish a profile to find others with similar interests. Often used to connect with old friends or to find new ones, social networking sites are some of the most popular sites on the internet.

But the internet operates in a multi-jurisdictional environment in which no one jurisdiction is dominant and there is little coordination, thus users of social networking sites (SNS)² generally receive little legal protection. Moreover, the potential impact and dangers of these sites are not yet fully understood or appreciated and it is probable that the most harmful consequences have not yet been witnessed. These issues are of growing concern due to the rampant use of social media, across countries, cultures and continents – more than 800 million people use Facebook alone. All this contributes to the extensive and growing problems relating to fundamental considerations of defamation, privacy and reputation, all of which I explore in this paper. Furthermore, the impact of these issues is not limited to a single area of life or society and the extraordinary impact of social networking technology ‘on the political, professional, and personal lives leaves us gasping in attempts to keep abreast’.³ Individual actions must be taken to avoid the lasting, and potentially deleterious consequences presented by SNS.

Whilst, in some countries, there have been important improvements to media law to reflect changing social landscapes, few have been