Re: Seems pretty sensible
I agree with the gist of what you saying but there is a very large difference, Google makes the information publically available on a global scale "forever".
It is not quite so easy to dig up information from old newspapers unless you are willing to trudge down to the library and even then there are no search facilities, such as those proposed by google.
Example :A young man that has commited a minor crime will get punished for his crime and more than likely his name will appear in the local rag. That same young man realises that he has done wrong, he is smote by regret and decides to turn a new page in his life and work for the good of the community for the next ten years ( which no-one informs the newspaper about) .
That same young man goes to get a job, his future would-be employer has never heard of the man before and gives him a job because he looks like a good lad. All things remain hunky dory.
Given the same situation when the very small crime is written into the anals of Google. That same employer will then do a quick google search and find only the "bad" side of what the young man has done. No one ever wrote about the good work he performed for 10 years and will therefore have a very negative image which could be considered as unfair ( in effect he would get punished several times for the same crime).
Newspaper news is basically fogotten about after only a few weeks, unless of course it was a major crisis. Google information is eternal and Google potentially makes money from evey search.
I am not defending the wrongs of anyones crimes but everyone can change and become good citizens. Most of us need a second chance at least once in our lives..
Another situation : A young girl gets raped. 10 years from now a quick search on her name and the first thing that we see is that she got raped 10 years ago. I can imagine that there are a lot of people that really don't want that information so readilly available.
My examples are kind of crap but I am sure that everyone catches the drift.
I am also glad that all my idiot years were long before google was even a spark of an idea.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
