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Fuhgeddaboudit.

Germany's Highest Court Rules Convicted Murderer Has the 'Right to Be Forgotten' Online

Germany's highest court decided that a man convicted of murder in 1982 has the right to be forgotten, meaning his name can be removed from online search results.

Also known as the "right to erasure", the "right to be forgotten" rule gives EU citizens the right to request that data about them be deleted.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the judges said that while it was allowable for search engines to provide news reports on current crimes, "the justifiable public interest in reports that made perpetrators identifiable decreased over time."

The man hoping to be forgotten was part of a major news story in Germany in 1982. As a crew member of a sailing ship named Apollonia, the man shot and killed two people and severely injured another following an argument on board. …

… Germany has a long history of data protection, dating back to the 1960s. In 1977, Germany enacted the first Data Protection Act at the federal level. They also have what one newspaper described as "one of the world's toughest laws around hate speech." ...