'Eraser' Law Will Let California Kids Scrub Online Past 266
gregor-e writes "The first-of-its-kind 'eraser button' law, signed Monday by Governor Jerry Brown, will force social media titans such as Facebook, Twitter and Google let minors scrub their personal online history in the hopes that it might help them avoid personal and work-related problems. The law will take effect on January 1, 2015."
Is this even constitutional? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not as stupid as it sounds (Score:5, Interesting)
No doubt many Slashdotters will trip over each other in their rush to proclaim that this will never work, insisting that the internet never forgets, and maybe mentioning the Streisand effect.
But the point isn't to erase the past entirely. Just to make it not so obvious. For example, a certain Republican presidential candidate used to have a "Google problem" [wikipedia.org]. Now, maybe that problem was well deserved given his policy positions, but he wanted to erase it. He didn't need it to disappear from the internet entirely, which would be impossible in any case, he just wanted it to not be the top result when someone searched his name.
It seems both possible and beneficial to allow young adults to bury some of the embarrassments of their college and high school years. The information is still there for anyone looking for it, but does it really make sense for it to be the top result? If I'm Googling potential employees, I'm probably more interested in papers they published than a YouTube video of them drunkenly dancing on a table.
Re:Is this even constitutional? (Score:3, Interesting)
If people post stuff on an online social media site, aren't they giving permission to publish it online?
Minor cannot legally enter into a contract. By the virtue of this, they cannot give legally binding consent to anything.
Re:Is this even constitutional? (Score:2, Interesting)
> If people post stuff on an online social media site, aren't they giving permission to publish it online?
Minors cannot enter into contracts. They cannot assign the right to redistribute the works to which they own copyright.
> Can they really revoke that permission later?
Yep. Because they cannot enter into contracts in the first place.
> Aren't there First Amendment issues here?
Nope, FB can say that so and so signed up and posted stuff... but they cant say what it was since the minors own the copyright and *cant enter into a contract* to allow FB to repost it.
> If I have a blog site with a public comments section, am I legally obligated to maintain that site forever so I can delete comments whenever someone turns 18 and demands it be deleted?
Nope, but whoever hosts it would have to respond to a DMCA request since you dont have license to display it.
Re:Thin edge of the wedge! (Score:4, Interesting)
Even more interesting is how this will play out with caches of sites. By that I mean, site A has the eraser button in place, and everything works fine and dandy. Site B keeps caches, but doesn't let minors/users from California access it. Site B caches site A and maintains the "un-ersaed" data from the original site.
Both sites therefore work within the letter of the law, yet the information is still online.
Re:Contest (Score:5, Interesting)
Historically, and continuing to the present the courts -- on up to the Supreme Court -- have ruled that when any kind of "transaction" is taking place, it takes place in the state of the place of business of the vendor. (That's why states can't charge a company sales tax unless the company has "a substantial physical presence" in that state.)
This legal precedent goes back more than 150 years, to the days when mail-order began to become big business. And note: internet sales (memberships, subscriptions, etc.) ARE nothing but mail-order. The only thing that has changed is the method of payment (credit card, Paypal, viewing online advertising).
The point here is: when you visit a website, legally the website is not coming to you, YOU are going THERE. It cannot, as a practical matter, work any other way because there is simply no way a given website can know all the local laws everywhere.
So if you have a website in Poughkeepsie, Gov. Jerry Brown has no legal authority to tell you what you can and cannot do with your website. He can tell you that you can't make sales in California. But other than that, he can't dictate what you do. Legally, Californians are visiting YOU, not the other way around.
Re:Is this even constitutional? (Score:5, Interesting)
Minors most certainly can enter into a contract. That contract is legally binding against the company but the minor has the ability to walk away from the contract with no penalty.
It is a significant difference because the minor can enforce the contract if they want. This is precisely why most business refuse to execute a contract with a minor, it puts the minor, or their guardian, in a preferential position in the contract allowing them to walk away penalty free when it's not in their favor or to enforce the contract when it is.
If minors couldn't execute contracts business wouldn't even bother saying they don't contract with minors because any contract signed would be invalid. The problem is that the minor decides if it's valid or not which means the business has to say explicitly that they won't contract with minors and require disclosure of age. This gives them an out to cancel the contract in the event the minor lies, or in other words it takes away the ability of the minor to enforce contracts that are unfairly in favor of the minor.
Re:Great idea! Let's keep it going: (Score:4, Interesting)