In recent years, the right to be forgotten and online reputation management have become topics of increasing interest and importance, especially when it comes to removing crime news from the internet. There recent law 134/2021known as Riforma Cartabia, has introduced new conditions for the removal of news from search engines such as Google, already foreseen under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU. These rules establish that if a person has been acquitted or if the criminal proceeding has been dismissed or prescribed, the news concerning the affair must be removed from the search indexes for searches of his name.
However, the process to get search results removed is not always immediate and requires some specific IT actions from the data subjects. We wrote the following guide in collaboration with Cyber Lex, an Europen company specializing in the right to be forgotten and reputation management on search engines. If you are a lawyer and a professional in the sector, you will find on this page an overview of the essential steps to request Google to remove the criminal news stories that concern you.
What is the right to be forgotten and what it means to delete news from Google
Before we explore ways to submit a search results removal request to Google, it’s important to understand what the right to be forgotten entails and what it means delete news from Google. The right to be forgotten allows an individual to request the deletion of their personal data from search engines or websites under certain circumstances. However, it is essential to underline that deleting news from Google does not mean permanently deleting it from the internet.
Google may remove content from the search indexes, but that content may still be on the original website or accessible through other sources. For this reason, whoever wants delete news from the internet ultimately should contact the Webmaster of each website and request removal from the page hosting the content.
How to submit a search results removal request to Google
There are specific steps you need to follow to submit a request to remove news stories from Google search results. Google has made available a Request form for the removal of personal information which allows you to start the telematic process.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Fill in your data: in the form, you will need to provide information such as country of origin, full legal name, contact email address and other relevant information.
- Identify the personal information to be removed and its location: You will need to specify the web pages containing the personal information to be removed and provide the reasons for the removal.
- Submit legal documentation to Google to verify the reason for the request: Google has removed the ability to attach files directly to the form, so you need to upload your documentation to Google Drive and share the share link in your request form.
- Sign and send the request: once you have filled out the form, you will need to sign it and send it. You will receive a confirmation email containing a reference number to track the status of your request.
Technical tips for filing a takedown request
To increase the chances of success in requesting the removal of search results, it is advisable to follow some practical tips to apply on the Google form for the right to be forgotten:
- Organize news URLs into groups: if you have more news to remove, organize them into groups that represent specific phases of the criminal proceeding, in order to clarify your request.
- Use Google Drive to send documents: upload the documents to Google Drive and share the link in the request form, as Google no longer accepts direct attachments.
- Communicate with the Google team: after sending the request, you will receive a confirmation email from the address [email protected]to which we suggest you reply to send documents and other useful information to the Google team to make decisions on your request.
Search “verbatim” for your name: to locate all the news related to your name, search “verbatim” with the name and surname, both in order and backwards.
The importance of news URLs
How do I find the correct URL to use for requests to remove or temporarily block a story from Google? Avoid simply copying the URL from your browser’s address bar, as it may not work properly.
The correct URL indeed depends on the tool you are using:
Whether the page is owned by you in Search Console and use the removal tool, see the specific page for this case.
If the page is not owned by you in Search Console and you’re using the “Remove outdated content” tool or a Google data removal request form, see the page for this other tool. If you’ve submitted a removal request and receive a “Removed” status, but the content is still visible in Google search results, check if the URL shown in the search results exactly matches the URL you submitted for removal. including any uppercase characters.
If there are any discrepancies, you should request the removal of the other URLs that appear in search results. Also check if the removal requests have expired in the corresponding tool. For pages you own in Search Console, check in the removals tool. For pages you don’t own in Search Console, check the “Remove outdated content” tool.
Avoid simply using the URL shown in your browser window. You may be thinking of copying and using it, but there may be several complex situations. For example, there could be a chain of URLs that redirect to the final page, or the site could have multiple different URLs that all lead to the same page.
The URL relevant to your inquiries is the one shown in Google search results, so it’s important to copy it from there. Note that while in most cases the search result URL will match the page URL, there may be exceptions.
The complaint to the Privacy Guarantor
In most cases, Google decides not to remove the news even if the conditions set by the data protection law are met. In these cases, it is possible to lodge a complaint with the Europen Data Protection Authority, a complex procedure that requires careful preparation and the assistance of an experienced lawyer. At the end of the procedure, you can use the removal measure to have the news deleted by Google and de-index the links of the web pages that host them. You can study the Google Transparency Report relating to requests for removal for the right to be forgotten and try to understand if your request falls within some of the cases usually accepted by the search engine.
Contact a Webmaster
In order to remove content from a website it is essential to contact the site owner directly. Even if you found content through Google, it’s important to understand that Google doesn’t have direct control over website content. Therefore, if the news needs to be deleted from the web, contacting the site owner is the most appropriate solution, as only he has the ability to remove the page completely.
Even if Google has removed the site or image from its search results, the page will still exist on the site. This means that the page may still be accessible via the site’s URL, links shared on social media or through other search engines.
To delete news from Google by contacting the owner of a website, there are several methods:
Look for the “Contact Us” link or an email address on the site’s homepage: often, this information is easily found right on the main page.
Use a WHOIS lookup via Google to find contact details relating to the site owner, just run this search on Google, entering “who is?” followed by the URL of the desired site, for example “WHOIS www.example.com”.
The email address to contact the Webmaster it is usually found in the “Registering email” or “Administrative contact” section. If you are unable to contact the website owner directly, try contacting the website hosting company. WHOIS search results usually include information about who hosts the website.
Remember that if the site owner has already made the requested changes and these have also been made in Google search results, you can request Google to remove the obsolete information by submitting a specific web page removal request.
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