A new law promising internet users the “right to be forgotten” will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday. It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are “legitimate” grounds to retain it…

“These rules are particularly aimed at young people as they are not always as aware as they could be about the consequence of putting photos and other information on social network websites, or about the various privacy settings available,” said Matthew Newman…

Although the existing directive already contains the principle of “data minimisation”, Mr Newman said that the new law would reinforce the idea by declaring it “a right”…

The commissioner, Viviane Reding, said that firms would have to explicitly seek people’s permission to use data about them and could not proceed on the basis of “assumed” consent in situations where approval was required.

Her proposed law says that internet users must also be notified when their data is collected, and be told for what purpose it is being processed and for how long it will be stored…

The bill also suggests people must be given easier access to the data held on them…in addition to the right to have it deleted.

However, the commissioner said that she recognised there were some circumstances under which this right would not apply. “The archives of a newspaper are a good example. It is clear that the right to be forgotten cannot amount to a right of the total erasure of history,” Ms Reding told delegates.

RTFA. There’s a certain amount of regulatory crap I’ve left out. The core of the concept is worth discussing.

In the euphoria following the downfall of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, Wael Ghonim, the so-called “hero” of the revolution proclaimed:

“Technology played a great role here. You know, it helped keeping people informed, it helped making all of us collaborate.”

He said the Egyptian government was “stupid” to close down the internet because that showed the world Mubarak was afraid. The revolutionaries even had back-up plans in the event of a government closure of internet access.

But according to Yale scholar Navid Hassanpour, the apparent positive role the internet played in the revolution has been misrepresented.

In a widely circulated American Political Science Association conference paper, he argues that shutting down the internet did make things difficult for sustaining a centralised revolutionary movement in Egypt.

But, he adds, the shutdown actually encouraged the development of smaller revolutionary uprisings at local levels where the face-to-face interaction between activists was more intense and the mobilisation of inactive lukewarm dissidents was easier.

In other words, closing down the internet made the revolution more diffuse and more difficult for the authorities to contain.

RTFA. An interesting conundrum methinks.