Re: "its in the public interest to know of old business fraud"
My understanding is that if I am thinking of doing business with someone (or hiring them) and I pay someone to research them (could be a credit reference agency or a private detective) it would be illegal for that report to include any spent convictions. Whether that should be the case or not, that is the law, I believe.
If that is the law, then it should apply equally well to the dossier which Google produces when I enter a name. Otherwise the law is both unfairly preventing the research companies from competing against Google, and it is unfairly exposing spent convictions which parliament decided should be illegal.
So, no. It is a thorny issue but parliament decided that the public interest in rehabilitating prisoners outweighs the public interest to know of old business fraud. You can argue to change the law but, whatever it is, Google should be subject to it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
