I understand that HN is on the side of absolute freedom of expression which entails that if anything has been public once, it has a right to stay to public till the dawn of times, so I hardly ever comment on these matters. I'm French, and I definitely do not agree with this opinion.

In 1978, the french government proposed to cross-reference (through digitalization) many of its databases (birth registry, healthcare, retirement fund, driver's license…). It encountered a very strong resistance from the public, mostly because of an news article in one the biggest newspaper (Le Monde) titled "SAFARI [the name of the project]: the hunt for french citizens" (la chasse aux français).
Needless to say that such a system would have been a blessing for the German administration during WW2. It was 1978 and WW2 didn't seem that far away, either your generation or the one of your parents lived during the war. That's how France ended up with a law (Loi Informatique & Libertés) that regulates what one can do with databases storing personal information.

How's that related to the right to be forgotten? Bear with me.

This law (and up to minor differences, the EU directive on the matter), makes explicit what I consider to be a very smart and important idea: "purpose of data" (finalité des données). Basically, before you're authorized to store personal data (like email adresses, names, phone numbers, IP addresses[1]), you have to state what the purpose of this data is (to who and how is another matter, but that's not too difficult).
Also, data should only be stored for a specific amount of time. This duration is determined by the purpose of the data. For example, if you have a database of all the people that used to be registered to your {nodejs,rails,lisp} newsletter but aren't anymore, you cannot keep that data for, say, 10 years. 10 years doesn't make sense given the purpose of your data. Note that if you anonymize the data, you're good to go.
On the other hand, if you have medical data on cutting edge treatment of cancer, you may want to keep the data for 30 years if you need to contact a former patient when you discover longterm side-effect of your drug. And in this case, it's fine.

You may start to see where I'm going. We have basically the same idea in the right to be forgotten. Yes, it impedes freedom of speech as american people think of it. Sure. But, you know, in Europe, we have a different freedom of speech, which also traces back to WW2. I can't go around saying that I hate black people and that I'm a nazi. I'm gonna be fined/thrown in jail for doing that. And a vast majority of Europeans do agree with that. Basically restrictions are nothing that promotes hate/racism and libel (you can't say that somebody's a serial killer before he's convicted for example.)

And you may think I'm backwards, turning away from the blinding beauty of technology (right to be forgotten? that's not how the internet works!). Thinking that Freedom of speech as the US knows it is the way to go everywhere is universalism, pure and simple. So, please remember that countries and people have a history.

Yep, the internet doesn't work that way. And I am aware the I can host my server in some random third world country and get away with mostly whatever I host. Or I can use a tor hidden service. But that's not the point. 99% of these cases will be about data hosted by legitimate businesses, which have a name and address and that will be compelled to remove the data.
In my opinion, the slope isn't that slippery. After all, you'd be hard pressed to consider EU countries as being way too censorshipy (?) — in general, not just when talking about Internet.

And yes, law will always be stupid when you pit it against technology. But unless you advocate total deregulation, it's a matter of how much idiocy you can accept.

Finally, a thought on jurisdiction: european judges consider that they have authority if the intended public is european. So yes, google.es, google.co.uk and such are subject to european law. Wether or not google.com is subject to EU law has not been tested in court (it probably has, but I can't remember any specific case), but even in this case, it would be perfectly acceptable (from the court standpoint) to alter google.com for EU IP addresses and leave it untouched for other addresses. So, no, nobody's gonna tread your freedom.

Ironically, I don't really have an opinion on Freedom of speech (US vs EU). But I find that the EU has struck a nice balance when it comes to that. Knowing that companies must destroy data that has my name attached to it when it's not relevant anymore is very appealing.

In the end, the US and the EU, in this case, disagree on principle, which are like axioms. You can't prove me that one is better (in the general framework of modern civilization, ie, let's say The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to keep it simple.)

[1] this one is tricky, but this comment is already long enough