Redl groups “Right to be Forgotten” with other censorship, calls it “regrettable”

Governments should not try to apply local laws to the borderless internet, Redl says.

David Redl, the head of the U.S. government’s NTIA, has criticized countries that are trying to apply local laws to the control internet. In comments made to the Global Internet and Jurisdiction Conference in Ottawa, Canada last week, Redl said:

In some countries, governments are responding with restrictive and isolationist policies. These include censorship, blocking, demanding a “right to be forgotten,” and requiring localized data storage. These policies seek to maintain the perception that our borderless, open Internet can be managed, bounded, and conformed to fit with local laws.

These actions are understandable, but regrettable. We understand that governments are trying to respond to very real challenges and concerns that their citizens have. They want to both protect and project their sovereignty.

But global companies end up getting caught in the middle of these conflicting policies, and as they work to address competing and inconsistent legal demands, the inevitable result is that users suffer diminished access and benefits from the network.

Many of those global companies are in the United States, e.g. Google.

Redl has previously expressed concerns over plans to hide Whois data in order to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.