As the internet approaches its 15th birthday, it may be time for The Observer to rethink its policy on what stays on our website and what should be removed.
Currently, we only take down material that is considered defamatory or just plain wrong, but what about pieces that misrepresent or offer an out-of-date picture of an individual?
In the past, if you appeared in a newspaper you could be pretty confident that, unless it was particularly major, your story would fade from the public consciousness as quickly as the newsprint on which it was printed.
Anyone who wanted to find out about you - for instance, a prospective employer - would have to work laboriously through newspaper files and cuttings. Now, newspapers on the web are everlasting, accessible in seconds and readily available, if, like ours, they have no subscription fee.
Last year, I reported on a request to remove a restaurant review from our website. The restaurant had changed hands and the new owners naturally felt that our review no longer reflected their service and food.
At the time I thought there were dangers of precedent here, which might lead to frequent requests for deletion or amendment of disobliging material from any person who felt that what we wrote about them in the past no longer pertained. Now, Google searches for the restaurant bring up that column, telling diners what they might assume for themselves - that a three-year-old review is not to be relied upon.
Last week, we received a rather different request: to remove a small profile of an individual because, she claimed, it was damaging her job prospects. Claire Ratinon has an unusual name, and an internet search would bring up many references to her work with the charity Action Aid.
It was this that she would prefer prospective employers to notice, rather than the item that appeared at the top of the search, entitled 'The New Puritans', published in our magazine last October. The feature announced that it was highlighting a 'new generation of young, educated and opinionated people determined to sidestep the consumerist perils of modern life. So, if you own a 4x4, spend all your time shopping, or are simply overweight - watch your back.'
Ms Ratinon was quoted as saying she disapproved of binge-drinking, debt, possessions, Coca-Cola and drugs and approved of boycotts, being in control and good grades, and has found all this being read back to her by prospective employers.
'My views were edited in such a way that portrayed me to be something that I am not - a member of the "joy cancer club" to use a phrase coined by a number of online commentators who found my supposed views to be repugnant.
'I consistently made comments about "nobody being able to live perfectly" but none of that appeared. My dislike for drugs stems from an experience with a boyfriend as opposed to some obnoxious moral high ground.'
This seems an obvious candidate for removal, but while the debate on our policy goes on, this blog and the associated column in the newspaper will also appear on a Google search of Claire Ratinon's name, making it clear that the paper's profile of her is not to be relied upon.
