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New EU web rules would let you forget yourself online

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

November 5, 2010 | 3 min read

Internet users will be able to permanently delete their social networking past under the "right to be forgotten" proposed by the European Commission.

The Commission plans to update data protection laws and wants to allow social network users to be able to permanently delete their profile and erase all data associated with it.

As it stands, when a member decides to leave Facebook, for instance, their profile does not completely vanish but is in effect suspended in case they decide to return.

Returning users find their previously stored profile information is in place when they decide to "rejoin" the site.

Facebook users need to send a formal request to the site's managers before all their data is removed. The Commission is seeking to simplify these kinds of processes.

Its proposals would help put at rest the minds of people who find they cannot escape their social networking pasts, dogged by embarrassing photographs and personal information that will not go away.

Matthew Newman, the Justice spokesman, said: "We don't want people to wade through multiple screens and search in little nooks and crannies on the website to actually get what they want… If they want to wipe it off, it's just gone."

Another contentious issue on the agenda of the Commission regards the nature of information websites are allowed to gather about their visitors.

The Commission wants to empower people to have the right to stop sites gathering information about them. Officials say they are committed to "clarifying and strengthening the rules on consent".

It is running a public consultation on the strategy paper until 15 January and hopes to have draft legilsation ready by mid-2011.

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