Do Americans Want a Right to be Forgotten? Estimating Public Support for Digital Erasure Legislation

Abstract

With the increasing salience of online privacy as an issue, concern has focused on the ability to delete outdated personal information. In response, several varieties of a law mimicking the European “Right to be Forgotten” have been introduced at the state and federal level in the United States, despite limited measurement of public opinion on the issue. Because policymakers and courts often consider public opinion when deciding what laws to make and how to interpret those laws, public opinion is an important consideration when thinking about the potential for a right to be forgotten in the United States. In order to determine likely levels of support, as well as what predicts public backing of such a law, we analyze survey data collected from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 1,380). We find that women are more likely to support such a law, as are those who are particularly concerned about online privacy, and those who express greatest confidence in Google. Those who think the government is too large are less likely to support such legislation. This suggests a complicated road forward for a Right to be Forgotten in the United States, with coalitions of support crossing traditional political boundaries.