How do you use the right to be forgotten?

The Digital Right to Be Forgotten Charters were introduced in France in 2010. Their aim is to free internet users, in how they use the web, from the constraints tied to their personal data and to how that data is used. Today, simply browsing leaves a trace, which many people experience as harmful. They feel watched in every move they make online. The charter is meant to help them get rid of some of that data, if they want to.

Some data is collected without the user really noticing, as we just said, and that is how Google, among others, can suggest targeted ads based on sites you visited a short time ago. About ten advertising agencies have signed this charter so that users can better manage their rights around this kind of targeted advertising, which is controversial because it does not rest on a decision to hand over that information.

Targeted advertising

The digital right to be forgotten is first about privacy protection, including targeted advertising on the web. As we said earlier, visiting a website is enough to leave an involuntary trace. Search engines record our queries and later suggest results linked to the sites and pages we already visited. With this charter, you can better manage your rights when browsing data is joined with personal data. Geotargeted advertising is also in the charter’s sights. Minors get more protection as well.

Personal data

Internet users are not always well informed about the digital data that concerns them, or about the e-reputation memory that data leaves behind. The second part of the charter is meant to make people aware of those realities of today’s web. It helps users change the data that concerns them and protect personal information from search-engine indexing, which now lets anyone “Google” a name and find answers that are too personal. This is a right, and signatories such as Pages Jaunes, Copains d’Avant, Skyrock, Microsoft, and Viadeo have committed to every point in the charter.