Of all the human traits, none has been so greatly magnified by the internet as the capacity to be humiliated. People have always written letters when drunk, tripped over carpets and confided their secrets to gossips. It is only in recent years that they have had the experience of being followed online for an entire lifetime by a crime report or a sex tape. For more than a decade, googling the name of Mario Costeja González has brought up links to a 1998 official notice in Catalan from the big Barcelona paper La Vanguardia, announcing the auction of his home for debts. It was a big deal for Mr Costeja and this week the European Court of Justice brought him a measure of relief. It ruled that Google could be made to remove the links in the name of a “right to be forgotten”.

This right has a sinister ring in English – it seems to entitle the bearer to control or suppress the thoughts of others. In Spanish, “derecho al olvido” means only that one has a right to turn over a new leaf, to consider one’s debt to society paid. Nothing is actually forgotten. La Vanguardia retains the notice on its website, where it can still be called up. The case has been cast as a victory for privacy bought at the cost of risk to free speech. But the risks have been exaggerated.

Thanks to the efficiency of search engines, time no longer heals all wounds. This is due to the intersection of two fundamental truths. First, nobody’s perfect. Second, very few people come to the attention of newspapers, law enforcement agencies and other bodies that post information on the Internet by being, say, a good mother, a loyal husband or a model employee. This dynamic has its worst effects on modest people – those who have only ever come to the attention of newspapers once. There are many perfectly decent people in Mr Costeja’s position who carry around the worst thing they have ever done like a nickname or a scar.