( CNN ) -- The Internet has radically altered many things , not least the speed at which we all share and receive information , and the depth of the information available . Before the Internet , information about individuals ( that they did not choose to share with you themselves ) could only be found by finding others who knew the individual or by trawling through media archives . The Internet changed all that . Now , at the touch of a button , it is possible to call up a huge amount of information about individuals -- not just public figures , but `` ordinary '' people , all sorted by search engines in complicated , secretive ways over which we have no control . This , many argue , is a major flaw in the system that needs fixing . Why should Google , Yahoo or any other search engine be the arbiter of what information others see about me when they run a search ? What if the information that is returned in that search is `` irrelevant '' or `` outdated '' and no longer reflects who I am -- or indeed causes people to treat me differently ? These worries are understandable . But the solution proposed by the European Union Court of Justice earlier this month is not the answer . Recognizing people 's concerns about their privacy , the European court ruled that individuals had the `` right to be forgotten '' -- that they should be allowed to request search engines to remove information considered `` irrelevant , outdated , or otherwise inappropriate '' and that the search engines would have to remove this material from search indices except in public interest cases . It is this gray area that is of concern to Index on Censorship . Search engines are not public bodies -- and while there is a legitimate reason to worry about the way in which these organizations present search results , the way to fix that is certainly not through a vague and woolly ruling that leaves decisions about what is and is not in the public interest in the hands of a private body . There is no legal oversight or appeals process built in to the ruling -- the court simply leaves it up to Google and others to decide ( independently of one another , a further recipe for chaos and confusion ) what is and is not in the public interest . Much has been made of the fact that the ruling would exclude public figures -- but that misses the point . It is not so much current public figures wanting to whitewash their personal histories that should worry us , but the potential for those who may become important public figures -- or simply be relevant to us for other reasons ( because they want to sell us products or join us in business , say ) -- many years hence , to have links to information about them deleted now , making it almost impossible to find in future . Index urges the court to put a stay on its ruling while it pursues a regulatory framework that will provide legal oversight , an appeals process and ensure that private corporations are not the arbiters of public information . While it is clearly understandable that individuals should want to be able to control their online presence , the court 's ruling fails to offer sufficient checks and balances to ensure that a desire to alter search requests so that they reflect a more `` accurate '' profile does not simply become a mechanism for censorship and whitewashing of history . READ MORE : Opinion : We have the right to be forgotten . READ MORE : Something in your past you 'd rather forget ? The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the Jodie Ginsberg .
Index on Censorship 's Jodie Ginsberg argues the `` right to be forgotten '' decision is too woolly . The decision , she writes , did not come with enough checks and it needs to be stayed . She says we should be worried about the ability for public figures of the future to whitewash their history .