Privacy settings
Before facebook privacy settings, lots of websites collected users profile information and store them on their own database for the purpose of advertisement or other uses (profileengine.com is a typical example of such websites). This is done without the prior knowledge of the users. After the facebook introduced its popular privacy settings, a lot users changed their privacy settings, which made their information not to be available for public. However, the information these websites stored about facebook users before they changed their privacy settings still reside in their databases.
Current Legislation
For the residents of EU, Google provided a form on Thursday May 29, 2014 to request for certain information to be removed from Google's search results. This was done in accordance to the European Court of Justice ruling that declared Europeans right to be forgotten.
This simply means that residents of EU can choose what information they want to appear on Google search results provided the information doesnt relate to financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.
A better legislation - Request for data removal
According to UN, individuals have a right to privacy. A better legislation be put in place to counter the privacy challenges of internet users all over the world.
A Request for Information Removal - every website that stores users information in its databases must provide means by which users can request for their information to be deleted permanently from its systems. And also such websites must notify all users about what ever information it stores about them.
With such legislation in place, users will be fully aware of what information about them is available for public and what information they want to remove.
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