How to remove arrest records from Google search results.
Do you need to remove arrests databases public records from Google search results ? Contact us today at webcides@gmail.com ITALY - A woman requested the removal of a decades-old article about her husband’s murder, which included her name. Successful.SWITZERLAND - A financial professional asked Google to remove more than 10 links to pages reporting on his arrest and conviction for financial crimes. Unsuccessful.GERMANY - A victim of rape asked the search engine to remove a link to a newspaper article about the crime. Successful.ITALY - A single individual asked Google to take down 20 links to recent articles about his arrest for financial crimes committed in a professional capacity. Unsuccessful.UK - A media professional requested the removal of links to articles reporting on embarrassing content he posted to the Internet. Unsuccessful.ITALY - Request from a crime victim to remove three links that discuss the crime, which took place decades ago. Successful. UK - An individual asked the search engine to remove links to articles on the internet that reference his dismissal for sexual crimes committed on the job. Unsuccessful.UK - A doctor requested Google remove more than 50 links to newspaper articles about a botched procedure. Three pages that contained personal information about the doctor but did not mention the procedure were removed from search results for his name. The rest of the links to reports on the incident remain in search results.GERMANY - An individual asked Google to remove close to 50 links to articles about an embarrassing private exchange that became public. Successful.ITALY - An individual asked for a link to a page that had taken a self-published image and reposted it be removed. Successful.ITALY - An individual requested Google remove a link to a copy of an official state document published by a state authority reporting on the acts of fraud committed by the individual. Unsuccessful.UK - A man asked Google remove a link to a news summary of a local magistrate’s decisions that included the man’s guilty verdict. Under the UK Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, this conviction has been spent. Successful.UK - A public official asked the search engine to remove a link to a student organisation’s petition demanding his removal. Unsuccessful.UK - Google received a request from a former clergyman to remove two links to articles covering an investigation of sexual abuse accusations while in his professional capacity. Unsuccessful.BELGIUM - An individual asked Google to take down a link to an article covering a contest in which he participated as a minor. Successful. Many of us have an embarrassment in our past. In fact, it’s a little shocking to discover that 41% of Americans have been arrested at least once by the age of 23. The vast majority of these arrests are utterly minor; most Americans also never go to jail, and many of us get released the next day. Unfortunately, that means many of us also have an arrest record and mugshot on the internet. And in working to remove your online mugshot, you may feel like you’ve been convicted of a crime by a court you’ve never been in or heard of. Why Is My Mug Shot Online? If you’re arrested, the records of that arrest tend to be available to the public. This is not consistent from state to state; each state has different laws about what records and types of records are available to the public. However, as a general rule, anyone can request and receive any public records tied to your name, and that includes the record of your arrest, divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, etc. This technicality has led to the rise of a niche publishing industry focused on arrest records; essentially, these sites are vast, searchable engines that collect and post every publicly available mugshot they can get their hands on. Some will also post the entire arrest record; others will just post the mugshot. Can My Online Mugshot Damage My Reputation? Unfortunately, the answer is “yes.” Furthermore, it can create a problem where there really shouldn’t be one. For example, some states automatically seal the records of juveniles for most crimes, for the express purpose of preventing youthful mistakes from causing long-term damage to citizens. But if the law enforcement agency places the mugshot online, then it can be copied and posted, even when a background check doesn’t turn up any arrest. This can cause problems with finding a job, with personal relationships, and create a whole host of other problems, especially if your online mugshot is highly ranked in your search results. The end result is that many people struggle with reputation damage and bigger problems than the actual arrest event in itself. Is Posting My Mug Shot Online Legal? Everything about this situation feels a bit like reversing the concept of the justice system; after all, we’re innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law by a jury of our peers. At the end of the day these sites are simply reporting a factual event in time, and are making no claims to innocence or guilt. Individual states are taking action as well, but that can have its own problems. Georgia recently passed a law that doesn’t ban publishing mugshots… but does ban charging a fee to remove them. Unfortunately, this only applies to mugshots posted online by the state of Georgia, and is based on public domain laws, so it will be of limited use for taking down an online mugshot. Florida proposed a bill that went even further, putting fines and other restrictions on mugshot websites that leave a mugshot up online after a removal request but that bill was denied. How To Fight A Mugshot Website EraseMugshots.com can help with this process; we’ll show you how to build an audience, and how to ensure you always have your best foot forward online. Mugshots websites shouldn’t wreck your life; let EraseMugshots.com help you preserve your reputation. Most removal are completed within 72 hours. We’ve published a new section of information looking the recent ‘right to be forgotten’ issue which relates to Google’s search results. We’ve copied this section below, and the specific section will be regularly updated as we learn more about how it works in practice. We are looking for evidence of whether people have been successful in getting Google or others to remove search results and/or online content. We have a dedicated policy section on the main Unlock website explaining more about this’ Summary You might have seen in the news recently that Google has launched a system where people can request information be removed from Google’s search results. This has come about because of a ruling on the 13th May by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case was brought by a Spanish man who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy. The court found in his favour, and this has potentially wide-reaching consequences for search engines like Google. The ruling only covers the removing of the search results – the information will still exist on the website that published the original article but Google won’t be able to deliver matches to some enquiries that are entered. Deletion of the original information would still be the responsibility of the website owner, and in our experience, it’s very rare that websites agree to remove details relating to convictions (see more in reporting of criminal records in the media). Information will only disappear from searches made in Europe. Queries piped through its sites outside the EU will still show the relevant search results. However, many people are still seeing the ruling as a potential way of dealing with the ‘google-effect’ that often haunts people for lots of different reasons, and our Helpline and Forum have already seen this being raised by quite a few people when it comes to past convictions that have been reported online. So the important question for us is whether it will actually help people with convictions? Is it likely to help people with convictions? At the moment, the answer is that we simply don’t know. That’s why we want to encourage people with spent convictions to submit a request (see ‘What next’ below) to see how Google are dealing with requests like this. Google itself has admitted that their system is their “initial effort” at complying with the Court’s judgement, and there’s little evidence of how they’re dealing with individual applications. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the judgement surprised many people, including Google themselves, and initial reports suggest that they’re being swamped with requests, with some suggesting that Google has been receiving over 10,000 requests per day. The ruling applies to other search engines too (e.g. Yahoo, Bing). Google has said that information would start to be removed from mid-June and that decisions about data removal would be made by people rather than an algorithm which governs almost every part of Google’s search system. Future updates This update will be used to start a new section, titled ‘The Google Effect’. We will be using this page to add further information about how this issue progresses in the coming weeks and months. What if I Google myself after my record is expunged & find information about the crime I committed? By Shae Irving, J.D. Share on Google Plus Share on Facebook Answer: If a private website -- such as a newspaper or online database -- has published information about your criminal history, others may be able to find it even after your record is officially expunged or sealed. For this reason, it is important to conduct an online search for your name after your record is expunged, and to correct the information if possible. You may contact the private website to request that it remove the out-of-date information about your criminal history. Be prepared to provide a copy of the court order showing that your record has been officially expunged or sealed. Also be forewarned that this procedure may take some time, and may not always lead to the results you want. For example, if an online news service posted a story about your arrest at the time it happened, it is under no legal obligation to remove that story later, even if no charges were brought against you or you were acquitted in court. Whether or not a news service will unpublish such an article depends on its policies and, sometimes, the moods of the individuals involved on the day that you ask. If you can document your expungement and you are persistent but polite, you may succeed in having old news stories removed. Also, some government agencies may simply fall behind when it comes to removing criminal records from their databases. If your record continues to show up in a government database that should have removed it, contact the agency to learn when you can expect it to be removed. To expedite the process, you may need the help of an experienced criminal defense attorney. Keep in mind that, after your record is expunged or sealed, you don’t have to disclose it when you apply for a job or housing, except in very limited circumstances described by state law. In other words, if a potential employer asks you whether you have a record, you can usually say “No,” as long as your record was officially erased or sealed. If the employer or landlord has stumbled across the stray information about your arrest or conviction, be prepared to prove that it was expunged and briefly explain the situation. Familiarize yourself with state laws that govern how others can use information about your criminal history -- including what employers are allowed to ask you about -- and assert your legal rights if necessary. Share on Google Plus Share on Facebook By Shae Irving, J.D. Share on Google Plus Share on Facebook Answer: If a private website -- such as a newspaper or online database -- has published information about your criminal history, others may be able to find it even after your record is officially expunged or sealed. For this reason, it is important to conduct an online search for your name after your record is expunged, and to correct the information if possible. You may contact the private website to request that it remove the out-of-date information about your criminal history. Be prepared to provide a copy of the court order showing that your record has been officially expunged or sealed. Also be forewarned that this procedure may take some time, and may not always lead to the results you want. For example, if an online news service posted a story about your arrest at the time it happened, it is under no legal obligation to remove that story later, even if no charges were brought against you or you were acquitted in court. Whether or not a news service will unpublish such an article depends on its policies and, sometimes, the moods of the individuals involved on the day that you ask. If you can document your expungement and you are persistent but polite, you may succeed in having old news stories removed. Also, some government agencies may simply fall behind when it comes to removing criminal records from their databases. If your record continues to show up in a government database that should have removed it, contact the agency to learn when you can expect it to be removed. To expedite the process, you may need the help of an experienced criminal defense attorney. Keep in mind that, after your record is expunged or sealed, you don’t have to disclose it when you apply for a job or housing, except in very limited circumstances described by state law. In other words, if a potential employer asks you whether you have a record, you can usually say “No,” as long as your record was officially erased or sealed. If the employer or landlord has stumbled across the stray information about your arrest or conviction, be prepared to prove that it was expunged and briefly explain the situation. Familiarize yourself with state laws that govern how others can use information about your criminal history -- including what employers are allowed to ask you about -- and assert your legal rights if necessary. Share on Google Plus Share on Facebook After our social media background check, are you afraid of what a future employer may find out about you? Rest easy as we have some tips to help you remove your personal information from more than a dozen online background check websites. I Flunked My Social Media Background Check. Will You?Your next job application could require a social media background check. Odds are, you have no clue …Read more How Do These Sites Get My Information?There are hundreds of online background check websites that gather information on people. In the US, these online databases are populated with information from public records like real estate transactions, arrest records, court cases, marriages, divorces, etc.AdvertisementBefore the Internet, investigators would have to go to the local town hall or the state records office and request this public information in person. Now with databases a dime a dozen, most of this information is readily accessible if you know where to look.A background check website will both mine these public databases and obtain demographic information from marketing companies. If you're young, you're paper trail is likely small, but if you're older, the amount of publicly available information can be staggering.What They Know About YouMost of this information is not as salacious as those party pics from the Bahamas, but you may not want your future boss finding out you recently went through a messy divorce. Before you start the removal process, you'll need to find out what information these companies have, if any. We used Social Intelligence for our background check, but there's a dozen or more big players that focus primarily on public information and not your social networks. It's these public databases that we'll look at here.AdvertisementYou'll need to go to the following sites and search for your name, address, and age.Intelius.comAcxiom.comMyLife.comZabaSearch.comSpoke.comBeenVerified.comPeekYou.comUSSearch.comPeopleFinders.comPeopleLookup.comPeopleSmart.comPrivateEye.comWhitePages.comUSA-People-Search.comSpokeo.comPublicRecordsNow.comDOBSearch.comRadaris.comCompiled by pibbman, these sites are considered the major players and have information that is scraped by smaller sites. Once you confirm a site has your information, mark it off and prepare to move onto the next step which is the removal process.How Do I Purge My Information From These Sites?Here's the hard part. Removing your information won't be easy as there's no one place that'll remove everything for you. Each site has different contact information and different procedures for removal. Some require you to fill out an Internet form, others require you to call and some even ask you to fax your driver's license to confirm your identity. If you send in your driver's license, make sure you black out all information except your name, address and DOB. Only give these companies the bare minimum they need to identify you and nothing more.This contact list compiled by LawyerCT will help you get started. Be prepared to spend a lot of time pouring through these websites, compiling the information they need and sending it to them. They don't make it easy and you'll be irritated by emails that bounce and fax numbers that don't answer. Relax and drink a cold beer while you do this, it'll help.If you can't stand this process, there are record removal companies that'll do this on your behalf for a fee. These companies may not be 100% effective, though, as some background check websites won't honor a removal request from a third-party. You and only you can ask for your information to be removed.I Did It, It's Done, Now What?Breathe easier knowing you have erased some, if not all, of your public information from these aggregators. This is only the beginning, though. You'll need to keep checking back to make sure new information does not appear. Try to keep yourself out of their radar. Don't get arrested or fight a legal battle. And if you get married, be ready to start this process all over again. You can keep up with Kelly Hodgkins, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google + or Facebook. If you’re arrested, the records of that arrest tend to be available to the public. This is not consistent from state to state; each state has different laws about what records and types of records are available to the public. However, as a general rule, anyone can request and receive any public records tied to your name, and that includes the record of your arrest, divorce, bankruptcy, foreclosure, etc. Answer: If a private website -- such as a newspaper or online database -- has published information about your criminal history, others may be able to find it even after your record is officially expunged or sealed. For this reason, it is important to conduct an online search for your name after your record is expunged, and to correct the information if possible. You may contact the private website to request that it remove the out-of-date information about your criminal history. Be prepared to provide a copy of the court order showing that your record has been officially expunged or sealed. Also be forewarned that this procedure may take some time, and may not always lead to the results you want. For example, if an online news service posted a story about your arrest at the time it happened, it is under no legal obligation to remove that story later, even if no charges were brought against you or you were acquitted in court. Whether or not a news service will unpublish such an article depends on its policies and, sometimes, the moods of the individuals involved on the day that you ask. If you can document your expungement and you are persistent but polite, you may succeed in having old news stories removed. Also, some government agencies may simply fall behind when it comes to removing criminal records from their databases. If your record continues to show up in a government database that should have removed it, contact the agency to learn when you can expect it to be removed. To expedite the process, you may need the help of an experienced criminal defense attorney. Keep in mind that, after your record is expunged or sealed, you don’t have to disclose it when you apply for a job or housing, except in very limited circumstances described by state law. In other words, if a potential employer asks you whether you have a record, you can usually say “No,” as long as your record was officially erased or sealed. If the employer or landlord has stumbled across the stray information about your arrest or conviction, be prepared to prove that it was expunged and briefly explain the situation. Familiarize yourself with state laws that govern how others can use information about your criminal history -- including what employers are allowed to ask you about -- and assert your legal rights if necessary. Share on Google Plus Share on Facebook One man's attempt to have his debts kept secret has led to the 'right to forget' - which now seems to be spreading around the world. Mario Costeja González battle began in 2009 when he found a Google search of his name brought up an article in a Spanish newspaper from 1998 about an auction for his foreclosed home, and a debt he had subsequently paid. He initially complained to the Spanish Data Protection Agency, which rejected his request on the grounds the information was lawful and accurate. However, it asked Google to remove it. The company then challenged the matter in the Spanish courts before a ruling was made by the European Court of Justice.The decision was widely criticised. German professor Niko Harting said: 'Privacy by default will encourage politicians, celebrities and other public figures to put their lawyers on track when they find inconvenient information online.'The impact of the ruling on Freedom of Speech, was highlighted by the removal from Google search listings of a blog written by Robert Peston, the BBC's economics editor, in 2007. A blog written in 2007 by respected BBC economics editor, Robert Peston, was removed from Google resultsThe blog about Stan O'Neal, the former boss of investment bank Merrill Lynch, revealed how he was forced out of his job after the investment bank suffered colossal losses on reckless investments it had made.In fact the removal was because one person no longer wanted a comment they had made on the blog associated with their name - emphasising that the 'right' went far beyond 'forgetting' the distant past.In May the European Court of Justice ruled that people have the right to have 'inadequate' and 'irrelevant' results about them wiped from the internet Under the European Data Protection Regulation, Article 17. Under Article 17, people who are mentioned in the data have the right to ‘obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data relating to them and the abstention from further dissemination of such data'. An online form was launched to allow EU citizens to ask for personal data to be taken down.The form requires links to the material the person wants removed, their country of origin, and a reason for their request. Individuals also have to attach a valid photo identity.Google then assesses each request individually, before deciding whether to remove information from search results.If a search engine elects not to remove the link, a person can seek redress from the courts. To remove something from Google’s search results, you have to remove it from the original source first. Once you take down a piece of content, Google and other search engines will naturally filter it out of search results. If you’d like to try and speed up the process you can try using Google’s URL Removal Tool. Note that you’ll need a Google account. Just hit the “New removal request” button, paste the link to the site that needs updating, and under “Reason,” select “The page has changed and Google’s cached version is out of date” from the drop-down menu. Then follow the directions on the page and “enter a word that has been entirely removed from the live page but is still present in the cached version.” Finally, submit your request. Google will approve or deny it within about 48 hours. Unfortunately, the reality is that arrest records are public, which means that anyone is able to get these records by putting in a Freedom of Information request. But there is a difference between that and having your mugshot plastered all over the internet. This is why you may need the services EraseMugshots.com that can get to work on removing the online copies of your mugshots and arrest records. Like Joe, many people who have never faced charges, or had these charges dropped, find that a lingering arrest record can ruin their current employment or chance to secure new employment, loans, housing or even a significant other. Even in a case of a mistaken arrest, the damaging records aren’t removed. Only 50% of the records with the FBI have fully up-to-date information and judicial outcomes. It is important to understand what EraseMugshots.com can and cannot do. While it is possible to have arrest records and mugshots removed from the internet, they cannot be removed from the courthouse filing cabinet. After all, this is public information and anyone can go to the government records information depot or to the courthouse and request a copy. However, Google or the internet as a whole, is not a court house, which means the mugshots can be removed from there. This technicality has led to the rise of a niche publishing industry focused on arrest records; essentially, these sites are vast, searchable engines that collect and post every publicly available mugshot they can get their hands on. Some will also post the entire arrest record; others will just post the mugshot. CleanSearch helps manage what search results are associated with your name-search. Due to the incredible demand for the management of online arrest records, CleanSearch created a platform in which we can pull your arrest record from it's online source quickly. The longer a record remains online, the more chance for proliferation. So, with Google’s solutions being nearly impossible to achieve, it would be better to actually enlist the services EraseMugshots.com which specializes in mugshots and arrest records removal. They have an excellent track record of actually getting the job done and do so quickly. They will also go beyond Google and check the other search engines as well, just in case those who are interested were to delve a little bit deeper. Although we do not remove from MyLife we do have instructions for you to remove your information yourself. MyLife recently closed their search results so that only members can view them, which means that we're no longer able to 1), see public results for who's listed on MyLife, and thus 2), remove our customers from the site. To remove your listing yourself, call MyLife at 704-1900 and press 2 to speak to an adviser. Have the following information on hand: name, age, date of birth, email, current address, and one previous address. Tell them that you want your listing removed and provide the information that they ask for. Once they confirm removal, the listing will be off the site in 7-10 days. You may contact the private website to request that it remove the out-of-date information about your criminal history. Be prepared to provide a copy of the court order showing that your record has been officially expunged or sealed. Also be forewarned that this procedure may take some time, and may not always lead to the results you want. For example, if an online news service posted a story about your arrest at the time it happened, it is under no legal obligation to remove that story later, even if no charges were brought against you or you were acquitted in court. Whether or not a news service will unpublish such an article depends on its policies and, sometimes, the moods of the individuals involved on the day that you ask. If you can document your expungement and you are persistent but polite, you may succeed in having old news stories removed. Online, your reputation lasts forever. Comments you made 7 years ago can still be found, posted photos can be saved and shared, no matter how embarrassing. Even public records like mug shots can be accessed, exploited, and shared online. Though there’s no cure yet for hauntingly embarrassing photos and off color comments, mug shot websites that once relentlessly taunted individuals with arrest records are beginning to lose steam. There are hundreds of online background check websites that gather information on people. In the US, these online databases are populated with information from public records like real estate transactions, arrest records, court cases, marriages, divorces, etc. A number of states, including Georgia and Virginia have passed mugshot removal laws that regulate the publication and/or removal of arrest records and mugshot pictures online. In other U.S. states, however, where privacy laws are lax and public records are readily available, mugshot sites are rampant, as is charging for the removal of mugshots. Chances are the first results that pop up on a Google search of your name are your social network profiles. This likely includes things like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and anywhere else you're using your real name. So, the first step to commit internet suicide is to remove these profiles. If you just want to remove search results, you can set your profiles to private, skip this step, and move on to step two. This isn't a perfect solution, but if you want to keep your social networks it will at least pull the results off the search engines. Here's how to delete your accounts on the big social networks: For $399, RemoveSlander promises to take that fight to florida.arrests.org, and force Wiggen to remove a mug shot. RemoveSlander’s owner, Tyronne Jacques — the author of How to Fight Google and Win! — said the removal fee pays for his crack legal team to deal with florida.arrests.org, and to force Google to get the URL removed from Google’s search index. Google could also consider whether mugshot removal companies simply aren’t a service worth listing, especially given that some claim to have proprietary technology, a trade secret, that lets them remove mugshots from Google. In reality, they just charge a takedown fee to the mugshot hosting site. Are those sites Google really thinks are worth listing? Lawmakers are working to shut down these websites, and make it possible for citizens to file a lawsuit against them. Georgia state representative Roger Bruce introduced a new law that now makes it a crime for websites to charge Georgia citizens to remove their mug shot photo. Now, mug shot subjects can file a lawsuit. “Basically what happens now is if your mug shot is out there and you call them, they have 30 days to remove it,” says Bruce. “If they don’t remove it now they are in violation of the law.” You essentially have one course of action to remove this content: contact the source directly. Email the web site hosting the content and politely ask them to remove it (or at least remove your name). A quick email works well for places like former employers who still haven't removed you from the employees list, family members who post pictures of you on their personal blogs, or even on donation pages for causes you've supported. In due time it will drop from search results. EraseMugshots.com’s background check removal solution removes your information from the most popular databases online. They remove your criminal, voting, phone, business, social media and other private records. It takes them up to 45 days to complete the process, but some removals are completed within 14 days. Once they have completed their work, their clients receive a confirmation package confirming the success of the process and a clean background report for their records. In 2013, a number of new laws came into effect across a range of states. These laws were agreed upon in order to protect people who have been falsely arrested. Essentially, it means that their records are expunged and their mugshots are removed. However, these new laws often only apply to dismissed cases and otherwise expunged records. Furthermore, if your case does fall under this law, the owner of the website still has 30 days to actually remove the photo. For many, that is simply too much time. This is why EraseMugshots.com offer a service to help you with this also offer a guarantee, being able to do it in a certain space of time. They will also address mugshots posted on websites outside of this country. This is a vital skill, because those are the websites that don’t even have to break any American laws. You may wonder why so much personally identifiable information about you is accessible online. By law, certain types of government records must be made public, with access enshrined in the Freedom of Information Act. Tax liens, registered voter files, business licenses, and property tax assessor files are some of the most common public records, and they serve as a source of information for consumer confidence issues such as the true value of a property or the legitimacy of a business or professional. These records are also a powerful way to monitor the actions of government and keep it accountable. Unfortunately, yes. Certain types of information are considered "public records" under the law, which means that anyone has the right to access them. Public record sources include legal documents, voter registrations, and mortgages. Public records laws were created before the Internet, when documents were physical copies. Now these records are far more accessible and visible than they’ve ever been, and our outdated laws do not treat them differently than if they were physical copies. Unfortunately, that means many of us also have an arrest record and mugshot on the internet. And in working to remove your online mugshot, you may feel like you’ve been convicted of a crime by a court you’ve never been in or heard of. Unfortunately, the answer is “yes.” Furthermore, it can create a problem where there really shouldn’t be one. For example, some states automatically seal the records of juveniles for most crimes, for the express purpose of preventing youthful mistakes from causing long-term damage to citizens. But if the law enforcement agency places the mugshot online, then it can be copied and posted, even when a background check doesn’t turn up any arrest. There are more and more states where the decision has been made to publicly display all mugshots. The state where public records are shared more freely than anywhere else is Florida. They first started to release this information to the public in 1999 and they haven’t stopped since. The official arrest website now has over 6 million mugshots on it. Other areas that are also notable when it comes to how many mugshots they share. These include Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, California, North Carolina, Arizona, Oregon and Alabama. (Mugshot removal) A Nashville lawyer hopes to wipe clean some arrest records for 128,000 Tennesseans. The lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, who has worked on multiple cases regarding incarceration and re-entry, has filed a class-action motion in county court to have the case files destroyed for hundreds of thousands of arrests and charges that never resulted in a conviction. Cathy Deng of expunge.io in Chicago found the same thing — a 25-page document full of legalese when people searched for information on juvenile expungement. Her goal, along with the youth nonprofit Mikva Challenge, was to try and close the information gap on eligibility. “The vast majority of arrest records for kids in Chicago can be expunged, but very few people apply because it’s confusing,” she said. Both websites are open-sourced on github. After that, you can appeal to the search engines directly to remove the edited pages right away. You can do so through Google, Google Images, or Bing by filling out a simple form and requesting the URL to be indexed again. This doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot. You'll have a better chance if someone is publishing libelous content about you, breaking a copyright of any kind, or if a page is displaying confidential information about you. Other websites that use a Google search window and display Google ads yielded similar results. For example, entering “Latanya Sweeney” in the search box on one of the Globe’s websites, Boston.com, generated an ad from Instant Checkmate that reads in part, “Criminal records, phone, address, & more on Latanya Sweeney.” You can also use a temporary email address for all your communications, and then use your new pseudonym and fake email address to sign up for any services you need. To keep your cell phone records private, you might also consider using Google Voice instead of going through a carrier since you can make up your Google Account name. Sweeney found that searches on Google’s own website produced Instant Checkmate ads just 16 percent of the time, but 84 percent of the time when searched on Reuters.com. And at the Reuters site, searches of black-sounding names were 25 percent more likely to yield ads with offers to view the person’s arrest or criminal record. Without high search engine rankings and limited methods of payment, mug shot websites seem to be cut off at the legs, much to the relief of individuals who have had their photos published on them. But while mug shot websites are no longer enjoying the heyday they once had, they do still exist, making money in other ways, including Google ads for bail bonds and related services. And as long as mug shot websites are still running, there is the potential for your arrest photo to show up online, damaging your reputation. An entire industry has blossomed. There are defamation and libel lawyers for hire who will scrub the internet for a client. There are companies like Reputation.com and UpFrontReputations.com who will create fresh, positive content, for a fee, to “suppress” an arrest, effectively pushing it back to the 5th or 10th page in a Google search. Sweeney ran the names though Internet searches in two places — the main Google website, and the news site Reuters.com, which uses Google to search its story archive. Both sites display ads generated by Google’s advertising service. While mug shot laws are slowly starting to be introduced in different states, including Oregon, Google and major credit card companies have moved swiftly to shut down the practice. Google launched a new algorithm in October 2013 specifically targeting mug shot websites, pushing them down so that they don’t rank highly. That means while they can still be found, individuals with photos on the mug shot websites may no longer rank in the top results for their name. According to Google’s Matt Cutts, the search engine giant was sparked to take on the mug shot websites early in 2013. If you succeed at changing a site, it can take Google a while to show updated search results. Fortunately, you can speed up the process using Google's URL Removal Tool. You need to have a Google account to make the request. Google itself has admitted that their system is their “initial effort” at complying with the Court’s judgement, and there’s little evidence of how they’re dealing with individual applications. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the judgement surprised many people, including Google themselves, and initial reports suggest that they’re being swamped with requests, with some suggesting that Google has been receiving over 10,000 requests per day. The ruling applies to other search engines too (e.g. Yahoo, Bing). No, not directly. Here’s the important thing: Google is not the source of the search results it generates; it’s merely letting that post be found more easily. The post is actually hosted on the website that Google links to. Google does not have the file, nor can it delete the file. If you’ve found your mug shot online and are struggling to remove it, don’t lose hope. You have options, and the law may be on your side to help. You can try to remove your mug shot online by following these methods: Some databases that we remove from require we submit a state-issued ID with the removal request. The people search sites ask for it to verify your identity, which is really just part of their game to make it more difficult to remove your information from their database. For example, check out Intelius.com’s Privacy Policy on that point. It’s unfortunate, but unless we send an ID along with the request, your info will stay on their site. Adam from EraseMugshots.com says: “Our new service has been designed to help people get back their privacy. To date, we have been able to remove over 8,000 personal records, and we want yours to be next. The information generation is here to stay and we are here to fight back.” Find out how to delete your name from mugshot websites and remove mugshot records from the internet. Learn DIY mugshot removal techniques and solutions to get mugshots removed from sites like Mugshots.com, BailBondCity, FindMugshots.com, CriminalDatabases.com and many more. Going through this step will help get rid of everything that comes in search results, but it will not remove your data completely. As long as information like your address and phone number are registered somewhere, people will be able to find you. Going through the process of opting out of background checks, public records, and people search engines just makes that personal data harder to find. EraseMugshots.com aims to address dozens of private companies that sell personal records, making them available to anyone with an internet connection. These records, in some cases, are even sealed or have been expunged. Those who purchase these details are told that they cannot use them to make decisions for housing, employment, or who their daughter dates. However, we know that is exactly what they are used for. Originally, these documents presented very few privacy threats, because they were only accessible by visiting government offices. Since the mid-1990s, however, states have worked hard to increase the availability of electronic versions of public records. Some states even sell your public records to online people-finder or information brokerage services, who then combine them and add other types of information to make much more detailed portraits of your private life. A number of recommendations have been released by Google. The first suggestion is to actually contact the owner of the website on which you have seen your mugshot and ask them to remove it. However, this is generally impossible, because it is highly likely that they will deny your request, or even ignore it. Furthermore, most websites that post mugshots don’t have easy to use contact forms, which means you have to find out who their hosting company is and pass a message on through them. Among his harshest public critics is the reputation-management company RemoveSlander.com. “Thousands of people are being criminalized by mug-shot websites that collect ad revenue at their expense!” snarls the company’s promotional YouTube video, “How To Remove Florida Arrests.org.” “Even defendants whose cases were dismissed are finding their mugs hot on the internet,” the company’s website adds. “Every time someone clicks on your page to view your mug shots, sites like Florida Arrests earns a little more cash from Google…. We have perfected the art of fighting mug-shot websites.” He initially complained to the Spanish Data Protection Agency, which rejected his request on the grounds the information was lawful and accurate. However, it asked Google to remove it. With that, Cabibi passed through one of the latest niche industries on the web: the mug-shot racket. Exploiting Florida’s liberal public-records laws and Google’s search algorithms, a handful of entrepreneurs are making real money by publicly shaming people who’ve run afoul of Florida law. Florida.arrests.org, the biggest player, now hosts more than 4 million mugs. If you record is approved for expungement, the court agrees to toss out its records. But what about Google? News archives? Mugshots.com? “It’s impossible to expunge information in this cyber-age,” said James Jacobs, a law professor at New York University and author of “The Eternal Criminal Record.” “You can have an official expungement, but to actually erase the events from history, I don’t think so.” In a research paper recently submitted for publication, Sweeney ran more than 2,100 names of real people through Google searches. She found that names that sounded black were 25 percent more likely to trigger ads for criminal records than names that sounded white — even if, like Sweeney, the person had no criminal record. Not every search of the same name yields the same result; sometimes the advertisement from Instant Checkmate is neutral, simply offering to do a background check on the person whose name is searched. Other times, the ads from Instant Checkmate were more explicit, offering to provide an arrest record or criminal history. Meanwhile, plugging “Jill Sweeney” into Boston.com’s search box yielded an Instant Checkmate ad that read: “Jill Sweeney found in database,” but no mention of an arrest or criminal record. But while the threat still exists, in some ways it has lessened. Arrest photos no longer rank high enough to block out all positive search results, and now, mug shot websites are changing up their game. On websites like mug shotsgainesville.com, booked inmates can’t pay to have their photo removed, but they can wait. The website, and many others like it, now refreshes data and hosts mug shot photos for a maximum of 90 days. That’s good news for people with prior arrests they’d like to leave behind in a hurry, but be careful: nothing is ever really gone online. Potential employers, creditors, and other interested parties may still dig up your arrest record and mug shot photo by using caching or searching the Internet Archive. That is, of course, assuming they are savvy enough to find them. Ultimately, the outlook is positive for individuals struggling with reputation issues from a prior arrest. Though there are some websites that are still publishing photos and somehow, charging for removal, their popularity has clearly taken a nosedive. And even though they still exist, individuals with prior arrests have more options than simply paying for removal — and the law may be able to help. If you’re featured on a mug shot website, seek out every option possible to get your photo and record removed. Take action, and defend your online reputation. This can cause problems with finding a job, with personal relationships, and create a whole host of other problems, especially if your online mugshot is highly ranked in your search results. The end result is that many people struggle with reputation damage and bigger problems than the actual arrest event in itself. Mugshot Removal : If you have a mugshot or an arrest record, the last thing you would want to happen is for people to know about it. This is particularly true if you own a business, as these types of details will seriously destroy your Internet reputation. Unfortunately, everything is online these days, and that includes your mugshots, something people may specifically look for when they want to evaluate you. (Mugshot removal) When he clicked through, Cabibi was greeted with his mug shot and booking information from his 2007 drunk-driving arrest in Florida. It’s an incident in Cabibi’s life that he isn’t proud of, and one that he didn’t expect to find prominently listed in his search results four years later, for all the world to see. It turns out, though, removing mug shots from florida.arrest.org is not as labor-intensive or arcane a process as the reputation companies claim. The real trade secret is that Wiggen wants a small piece of the action. He said his arrest came during a lapse in judgment, when he drove home intoxicated from a Florida bar after watching college football in 2007. His blood-alcohol was almost double the legal limit. He pleaded no contest, paid a fine and did six months’ probation. The Adobe applications administrator thought his past was behind him. Recently a friend contacted me because his daughter was in tears about her mugshot photo being posted on the Internet. She was arrested a few years ago, the matter was settled, and the arrest record was expunged. Nevertheless, her mugshot was prominently displayed on several sites whenever anybody Googled her name. When somebody gets arrested, the police take a booking photograph, commonly known as a mugshot. This photo isn’t proof of guilt; it is standard police procedure during the booking process and only means that one officer felt there were grounds to make an arrest. Gone are the days when print ruled the news world. Newspapers, including their police blotter, were likely read and tossed aside. Maybe the newsprint was used to wrap fish. Decades of issues of Greenwich Time are archived in the basement of Greenwich Library. Looking up someone’s arrest took time and effort. “Nolle’d, it’s the state saying, ‘We’re not going to prosecute,'” explained O’Neill. “When a case is nolle’d, it converts automatically to a dismissal after 13 months,” he said, adding that in those situations the arrest report should also be deleted from the internet. And while the bulk of Mark Sherman’s practice is criminal law, O’Neill said clients often return for help when they discover that, despite their charges having been dropped, their arrest is still available online and hurts their job prospects, privacy and reputation. He said that situations of mistaken identity can have the same impact. O’Neill referred to a case of one of his clients, Lorraine Martin, a nurse who was arrested in Greenwich in August of 2010 with her two sons. Three news outlets published details of the arrest, which involved drug charges: Hearst, Channel 12 and Main Street Connect (now the Daily Voice). “That dialogue never happens when you apply for a job,” O’Neill said. “A person may likely never get a chance at an interview and not know why. “They may say, ‘Oh, we decided to go in another direction.’ You don’t know if they Googled you and something came up.'” That puts people in the dilemma of whether to tell an employer about an arrest up front. Should they try to explain that the charges were dropped, even though they are allowed to claim under oath they were never arrested? Dinan said his reasoning is twofold. Not only does a searchable arrest damage a person’s ability to get a job or move forward in their life, even if charges are dropped, but, he said, “We feel that to be truly attuned to the sensibility of this town, there is no reason to embarrass someone who is going through a difficult time. In New Canaan, if a person is having a very hard time—say, a neighbor or someone who lives on your street—then you likely know the situation already. And the best sides of us, as members of the community, would reach out to help someone in trouble, rather than gossip about them.” Keep in mind that, after your record is expunged or sealed, you don’t have to disclose it when you apply for a job or housing, except in very limited circumstances described by state law. In other words, if a potential employer asks you whether you have a record, you can usually say “No,” as long as your record was officially erased or sealed. If the employer or landlord has stumbled across the stray information about your arrest or conviction, be prepared to prove that it was expunged and briefly explain the situation. Familiarize yourself with state laws that govern how others can use information about your criminal history -- including what employers are allowed to ask you about -- and assert your legal rights if necessary. “You could be in competition for an award, a scholarship, a new job,” she said. “You could be in a position of trust, like a professor, a judge. Having ads that show up suggestive of arrest, may actually discount your ability to function.” Sweeney said executives at Instant Checkmate told her they had bought search results from Google on the names of 100 million Americans. When one of these names is searched, Google displays an ad for Instant Checkmate, and gets a small fee if the searcher clicks on its ad. The more clicks an ad receives from searchers, the more likely it will appear on the page for that search term. Sweeney said she has no idea why Google searches seem to single out black-sounding names. There could be myriad issues at play, some associated with the software, some with the people searching Google. For example, the more often searchers click on a particular ad, the more frequently it is displayed subsequently. The website was florida.arrests.org, a privately run enterprise that siphons booking photos out of county-sheriff databases throughout the Sunshine State, and posts them where Google’s web crawlers can see them for the first time. Desperate to get off the site, Cabibi quickly found an apparent ally: RemoveSlander.com. “You are not a criminal,” the website said reassuringly. “End this humiliating ordeal … Bail out of Google. We can delete the mug-shot photo.” Wiggen said he wasn’t setting out to shame or embarrass anyone: From his point of view, he’s getting free content, then monetizing it with Google AdSense banners hawking defense lawyers and bail bondsmen. But the end result is that mug shots that were once hidden behind police CGI search scripts now display in Google searches, often prominently. “You know, I did make a mistake back then,” he said. “There’s a difference between having it available on the county jail website … then to have it return on the first page in Google when you google your name. It seems like … extortion to me.” If you cannot get everything off of your Google search results, you might also consider burying personal data as far as possible. To do this while maintaining your vow to delete yourself from the internet forever, create profiles on popular social sites like Twitter, Google+, or Facebook as well as landing pages like About.Me with just your name and no other details. You can also set up your own website filled with lots of keywords about your name but no actual information (or just create a 410 error page and leave it at that). It's not as good as deleting content completely, but at least internet sleuths will only be lead to a blank page with no information on you. Wiggen said he wasn’t setting out to shame or embarrass anyone: From his point of view, he’s getting free content, then monetizing it with Google AdSense banners hawking defense lawyers and bail bondsmen. But the end result is that mug shots that were once hidden behind police CGI search scripts now display in Google searches, often prominently. Taking advantage of Google’s new policy concerning your “right to be forgotten” can be a bit complicated, but one website is trying to make it easier. Forget.me takes the hassle out of removing unwanted links appearing on the ubiquitous search engine by simplifying the process, optimizing your request and alerting you once Google has received the request. The ads show up both on searches done on Google’s home page and on other websites that have built-in search functions and allow ads from Google to appear alongside the results. In all cases, Sweeney found the ads were from the same firm: Instant Checkmate LLC, a Las Vegas company that provides online background checks. Google, meanwhile, issued a statement denying its AdWords business discriminates. AdWords is Google’s highly profitable service in which businesses pay to have their ads appear in the results when users search particular keywords or phrases. Unfortunately, the laws surrounding third party use of mugshots online are unclear at best. In California (and assumedly the rest of the U.S.), there are no statutes that say directly when mugshots can or can’t be posted by for-profit websites. There are also no rules about when (or if) a website is ever required to remove them. If you aren’t willing to pay the high fee of a removal site or do not want to deal with the people who run those removal sites, then expungement is another option. Generally, sites that posts mugshots will remove your mugshot if you have gotten your conviction expunged and you present them via email with proof of your expungement. This isn’t due to any law requiring them to, it’s simply a business practice of many of these sites. Therefore, if you get your conviction expunged, you should start contacting the sites again to let them know that this occured. Getting your record expunged does not guarantee that your mugshot will be removed from a website. BUT, sending these websites proof that your record has been expunged increases the likelihood that a site will remove your mugshot, especially if the site lists expungement as one of its qualifications for removal. Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright law Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright LawI. What is copyright law, who created it, and why do people think we need it?II. What can and can’t be copyrighted? III. How do you get a copyright?IV. Now that I have the copyright to something, what does this allow me to do? IX. Are there easier alternatives than copyright?V. How long do copyrights last?VI. How do I make money off of my art, music, or other copyrighted work?VII. How do I figure out if something is copyright protected or public domain?VIII. How can I get permission to use a copyrighted work?X. What can I do if someone is trying to use my copyrighted work without permission?How can I remove my mugshot from a website?How do I report copyright infringement on YouTube?Someone stole my idea for a movie. What can I do?What are the penalties for false copyright infringement claims?What should you do if suspect that someone is infringing on your copyright?XI. What will happen to me if I get caught using copyrighted work without permission?XII. What is Fair Use? Does fair use allow me use copyrighted work for free and without permission?XIII. What is a derivative work? Frequently Asked Questions about Copyright LawI. What is copyright law, who created it, and why do people think we need it?II. What can and can’t be copyrighted? III. How do you get a copyright?IV. Now that I have the copyright to something, what does this allow me to do? IX. Are there easier alternatives than copyright?V. How long do copyrights last?VI. How do I make money off of my art, music, or other copyrighted work?VII. How do I figure out if something is copyright protected or public domain?VIII. How can I get permission to use a copyrighted work?X. What can I do if someone is trying to use my copyrighted work without permission?How can I remove my mugshot from a website?How do I report copyright infringement on YouTube?Someone stole my idea for a movie. What can I do?What are the penalties for false copyright infringement claims?What should you do if suspect that someone is infringing on your copyright?XI. What will happen to me if I get caught using copyrighted work without permission?XII. What is Fair Use? Does fair use allow me use copyrighted work for free and without permission?XIII. What is a derivative work? Individual states are taking action as well, but that can have its own problems. Georgia recently passed a law that doesn’t ban publishing mugshots… but does ban charging a fee to remove them. Unfortunately, this only applies to mugshots posted online by the state of Georgia, and is based on public domain laws, so it will be of limited use for taking down an online mugshot. Florida proposed a bill that went even further, putting fines and other restrictions on mugshot websites that leave a mugshot up online after a removal request but that bill was denied. EraseMugshots.com, a business in New York City, NY, is proud to announce that they have launched a new service. They now offer a comprehensive background check removal solution. This service helps people remove their personal information from over 30 of the most well known background report service providers online. So is it even possible to remove your personal information from the Internet? Yes, there are steps you can take to make to make your data much harder to find. ReputationDefender is the industry leader in online privacy sector, and we’ve compiled this detailed guide to help you get started. Here's the hard part. Removing your information won't be easy as there's no one place that'll remove everything for you. Each site has different contact information and different procedures for removal. Some require you to fill out an Internet form, others require you to call and some even ask you to fax your driver's license to confirm your identity. If you send in your driver's license, make sure you black out all information except your name, address and DOB. Only give these companies the bare minimum they need to identify you and nothing more. “The RemoveSlander site was perfect. It seemed like it was just tailored to the mug-shot site,” Cabibi said in a recent telephone interview from Orem, Utah. “I searched ‘how to remove mug shots from florida.arrests.org,’ and the site was the first result. And I paid.” Under immigration law passed in 1996, a “conviction” for the purposes of deportation includes any instance in which a person pleads guilty to a crime or some kind of punishment is imposed, such as some mandatory diversion programs. Even if the record was sealed or expunged, it could still be used as a reason to remove someone from the country. The DIY method requires you contact around 25 different sites individually to remove the listings that include your address, phone number, income, marital status, current job, and everything else. Some sites are as simple as opting out through a link (Reddit has a great collection of the easy ones), while others require that you send in proof of identification and a letter. The process to remove this data is dependent on the forums and sites you use. If you can, unlink your primary email address with your username whenever possible. If you're dealing with forums, ask the moderators to delete any posts that identify you personally. Essentially, cut any ties between your email address or name with your username. If you use the same username for every site, consider coming up with new names for every site. I recently had lunch with the chief of police in a neighboring town and asked him what he thought about online mugshots. He told me that his department publishes mugshots, but removes them once each case is adjudicated. That seems perfectly fair. However, nothing requires third parties who have copied mugshots to remove them when the case is resolved. We’ll email you your password within 20 minutes. You’ll then log in, and on your profile page submit any aliases you have (maiden name, common misspellings, etc.), your current & past addresses, and your date of birth. Please note, you can add as many addresses, names, emails and phone numbers relating to you into your account for DeleteMe to search for and remove. You’ll then either upload, email, or fax us a picture of your license or state-issued ID. Our DeleteMe Advisers take it from there, submitting opt-outs to data broker sites on your behalf within 7 days. The day you receive your Privacy Report is the day we’ve sent the opt-outs, so give it some time to see your information removed from all of the sites. Each database has its own unique opt out method; some make it easy for us to continually monitor your information, while others make it a lot harder; So the answer is both yes and no. We continually scan about half of the databases we remove from, while the other half we monitor on the same quarterly schedule in which you’ll receive your reports. Some sites do not offer an opt-out procedure. These sites typically are based outside of the US, and all of them are aggregation sites. They collect their information from social networks, public search results, and the major people search databases listed above. Although there's currently no way to remove your information from these sites, deleting it from the others has the practical effect of filtering it out of both. However, we do have a guide for either removing the item or pushing it down in search results.Generally, you cannot remove online content unless it violates a website’s Terms of Use and/or is unlawful in some way: for example, it infringes on your copyright, it exposes your “confidential” information (social security number, credit card number, etc.), or it is spam. Here’s some additional information on defamation (in other words, someone else writing negative things about you). Generally, you cannot get a defamatory item removed without legal documentation supporting your claims. Under the current state of Internet law, hosting companies and websites are under no legal obligation to remove allegedly defamatory content without a court's determination that the content is actually untrue and harmful to you. It's a frustrating and unfair restriction, but without it, it'd be impossible for websites and hosting companies to handle thousands of defamation claims. Unfortunately, in order for your information to be removed from family members' listings, the family members themselves would have to opt out. If the family member listed is interested in helping you remove your info from the web, we offer a free online DIY guide. Once you’ve purchased your DeleteMe subscription, you’ll be directed to your DeleteMe personal profile page. You’ll fill out your personal data sheet with the identifying information you’d like removed from the web (e.g., current and past addresses, date of birth, aliases, etc.) Your first report will be run within 7 days of your date of sign up. Please note that if you don’t provide us with an address, we won’t know to delete it. you can add as many addresses, names, emails and phone numbers relating to you into your account for DeleteMe to search for and remove. If any information changes, or you remember older information, you can always log into your DeleteMe account and update your data sheet. Additionally, we ask for a copy of your state-issued ID as some databases require we submit one along with the removal request. Each database has its own unique opt out method. Some make it easy for us to continually monitor your information, while others make it a lot harder, so the answer is both yes and no. We continually scan about half of the databases we remove from, while the other half we monitor on the same quarterly schedule in which you’ll receive your reports. As such, please don’t send us emails that say things like “I’m listed here; take it down right now!” We’ll take it down, but we’ll be following our quarterly subscription schedule. Privacy protection in the digital age is much more complicated than it used to be. In the past, if people wanted to access your public records, they had to visit the county clerk’s office. Today, many government documents containing highly sensitive personal data are readily available on the Internet, presented together with detailed marketing profiles, personal browsing histories, and social media data. Personally identifiable information is so pervasive online that even the Pentagon has had trouble keeping it hidden. While you can’t completely erase government public records—they’re public for a reason, after all—you can make them significantly harder to find online. As concerns with privacy protection and identity theft continue to grow, governments are adding new protections, such as automatic redaction of sensitive information and procedures to have data removed manually. You can take advantage of these protections, but only if you are proactive about it. In most cases, the default is to keep all information public. Before the Internet, investigators would have to go to the local town hall or the state records office and request this public information in person. Now with databases a dime a dozen, most of this information is readily accessible if you know where to look. “So the whole practice is designed to exploit human weakness,” said Aftergood. “From an information policy point of view, it is also likely to have adverse consequences. People are more likely to say, ‘Who needs it, let’s seal all of these records.’ That would be an unfortunate consequence.” Many of those who could benefit from the process, called expungement, do not even know it. "A lot of the people who are affected by this already believe they've had their records expunged," Horwitz told the Tennessean. That’s the thing about expungement: many who are eligible for it don’t know they are, advocates say, and many who know they are don’t know how to get it. "The biggest impediment to civil rights and employment in our country is a criminal record,” Sen. Paul said in a 2014 statement. “Many of these young people could escape this trap if criminal justice were reformed, if records were expunged after time served, and if nonviolent crimes did not become a permanent blot preventing employment.” People search websites, also called “data brokers,” collect, publicly list, and sell, your personal data. These websites scrape public records from a huge variety of sources and generally aren’t very transparent about where the information specifically came from. Data brokers compile all kinds of personal details about you and neatly package it up to sell. These sites can have everything from your name and address, to shopping habits and religious views. Here’s a list of some of their biggest sources for data: data broker sites respond to opt-out requests at different speeds. Some take your information down immediately, and some (especially those that require hard copy mailings) can take up to 6 weeks. New information is always being generated about you online and in public records, which can ultimately regenerate your profile in people search databases even after we’ve sent them your opt-outs. As a rule: be careful who you supply your contact information to -- you'd be surprised how often your information is collected. When you order something online, send in a warranty card, sign up for a social networking site, or enter a sweepstakes, you’re submitting your information to potentially public sites. We recommend using Abine's Blur software to protect your information when you're browsing the web, which you can download for free here. Yes, your personal information will sometimes repopulate after we’ve removed it. Because new information is constantly being generated about you in public records and as you continue to use the web, this can ultimately regenerate your profile in people search databases. By offering DeleteMe as a subscription, we are able to make sure your information is gone and stays gone. We also offer a free DIY guide on opting out of these sites yourself. Also, some government agencies may simply fall behind when it comes to removing criminal records from their databases. If your record continues to show up in a government database that should have removed it, contact the agency to learn when you can expect it to be removed. To expedite the process, you may need the help of an experienced criminal defense attorney. “AdWords does not conduct any racial profiling,” said Google, adding the company’s policies prohibit advertisements “that advocate against an organization, person or group of people. It is up to individual advertisers to decide which keywords they want to choose to trigger their ads.” For her research, Sweeney compiled a list of names from the 2004 study, and from a chapter in the book “Freakonomics” on distinctively black names. She then identified 2,184 people with either distinctively white or black names and confirmed the race of about 1,400 of them by looking up their photos in Google’s image database. On the other hand, Sullivan said Sweeney has uncovered a problem with online searching — the casual display of information that might put someone in a bad light. Rather than focusing on potential instances of racism, he said, search services such as Google might want to put more restrictions on displaying negative information about anyone, black or white. The compliance officer decided to take his research a step further and refer back to the employee’s original job application. At that point a big problem was discovered in the eyes’ of this compliance officer. This individual had lied on his job application, and that would be grounds for termination as far as this compliance officer was concerned. When Joe was asked if he was ever “convicted or charged with a crime” he confidently selected NO, but Google told another story. The landmark privacy decision by the European Union Court of Justice arose from a number of cases brought by the Spanish data protection authority in 2011, such as one involving auction notices for a house that had been repossessed, which the former owner felt infringed his privacy. The ruling applies across the EU, even to US-based companies such as Google and Facebook. A committee of experts will make the judgements, with members including Luciano Floridi, professor of philosophy and ethics of information at the University of Oxford. In a statement provided to CNET by Google, Floridi called the move "an exciting initiative, which will probably require some hard and rather philosophical thinking." Google isn't the only information collector around. Anybody who's willing to pay online information brokers — also known as people-search sites — can learn your phone number, address, criminal record and a lot more. Philip Cabibi, a 31-year-old applications administrator in Utah, sat at his computer one recent Sunday evening and performed one of the compulsive rituals of the Internet Age: the ego search. He typed his name into Google to take a quick survey of how the internet sees him, like a glance in the mirror. Cabibi paid RemoveSlander $399 by credit card, and within a day, the site had come through. His mug shot was gone from florida.arrests.org, and his Google results were clean. Other sites offering the same service are also closed-mouthed about their methods. The site RemoveArrest.com often enjoys advertising right on Wiggen’s site through Google’s algorithm-driven AdSense program. Joe Ellis, the operator of RemoveArrest.com, said his method is “proprietary,” but that he’s used it to get “hundreds” of mugs removed at $129 each. You'll want to follow the above steps for any other social networks you use, forum accounts you have, or other sites you registered under your real name (this might include Yelp, Amazon, Quora, etc). If you have trouble remembering all your accounts, Account Killer has a huge list that includes direct links to deleting your profile from over 500 different sites. Your Google search for your name in the first step should also provide a guide to places you used your real name to create an account. Once you get rid of your social profiles, content is likely still floating around the web that you need to get rid of. They might be images, articles, or even employer websites. The first thing to do is figure out where you're showing up online in search results. Search Google and make a note (or bookmark) where you name shows up on web sites. I asked the chief whether he thought these sites were engaging in extortion. He agreed that they were, and added that the lady shouldn’t be suing the police, she should be suing Google, because they’re the ones who have created this problem. The first amendment protects the rights of publishers to report information obtained from legitimate sources, such as police websites that host mugshots. However, when publishers ask for money, either directly, or indirectly, in exchange for removing embarrassing material, that’s extortion in our view. If the law doesn’t consider this activity to be extortion, the law needs to be fixed. And even if the law can’t be fixed, Google can create its own policies that would help. Mugshots could easily be reigned in under existing policies regarding duplicate content, thin content sites, and scraper sites. Google (and Bing) claim not to want search results that include multiple copies of the same thing, or content scraped from other sites. Yet, they return multiple copies of the same mugshot image, and multiple search listings for mugshot sites that present the same information that’s been scraped from police department sites. “We share the author’s general concerns with the business model of these sites. We have AdWords and AdSense policies on user safety and sensitive content and regularly take action against sites that violate those policies, as the author notes. Google’s search results are a reflection of the content that’s available on the web. With very narrow exceptions, we take down as little as possible from search and have resources available for both users and webmasters to stay informed about content removal policies.“ We’re always working to add to our menu of products, so stay tuned for updates on Google search results assistance. Although we do not currently offer this service, we do have a free online guide for removing and/or pushing down in search results. Within a month of the ruling coming into effect, more than 12,000 people across Europe used an online Google form to request information about them be deleted. More than 10 per cent of the requests came from paedophiles. Facebook - 3,332 (URLs removed)Profileengine.com - 3,289Youtube - 2,392Badoo - 2,198Groups.google.com - 1,945yasni.de - 1,559whereevent.com - 1,511192.com - 1,412yasni.fr - 1,298yatedo.fr - 1,174 Once you’ve completed all the steps, you will have two options: have the Forget.me team send the request to Google for you or send it yourself. During the “start-up phase,” the service will be entirely free, but that may change once the website takes off. Bibliography DeleteMe Frequently Asked Questions. (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.abine.com/deleteme/faq/. Five Things You Didn't Know About Clearing Your Record | The .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/09/17/five-things-you-didn-t-know-about-clearing-your-record. Google's 'right to be forgotten' . (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://hub.unlock.org.uk/googles-right-to-be-forgotten/. How To Remove Information From Google & Public Records .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.reputationdefender.com/blog/privacy/how-remove-information-google-public-records/. How can I remove my mugshot from a website? | New Media Rights. (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://www.newmediarights.org/book/how_can_i_get_my_mugshot_taken_down_website. How to delete yourself from the Internet. (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2013/01/25/komando-delete-yourself-internet/1852143/. More than 6000 people have their pasts erased from Google | Daily .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2789081/more-6-000-britons-persuade-google-remove-web-links-controversial-right-forgotten-ruling-attacks-free-speech.html. Mugshots.com Removal Policy – Remove My Mugshot from the .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://medium.com/remove-my-mugshot-from-the-internet/mugshots-com-removal-policy-a1cfe81a5543. New Options for Individuals Plagued by Mug Shot Websites .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.reputationmanagement.com/blog/mug-shot-websites/. Opinion: Why Google Should Crack Down Harder On The Mugshot .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://searchengineland.com/opinion-why-google-should-crack-down-harder-on-the-mugshot-extortion-racket-145570. Racial bias alleged in Google's ad results. (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/02/06/harvard-professor-spots-web-search-bias/PtOgSh1ivTZMfyEGj00X4I/story.html. Remove Criminal Records & Arrest Mugshots from Internet Search .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://sites.google.com/site/removeonlineinformation/remove-arrest-record. What if I Google myself after my record is expunged & find .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/what-if-i-google-myself-after-my-record-expunged-find-crime-committed.htm. When Your Case is Dismissed but Your Online Arrest is Forever .... (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://greenwichfreepress.com/news/government/arrested-case-dismissed-not-all-online-news-sites-delete-arrests-30766/. You can now ask Google to remove links about you . (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.cnet.com/news/you-can-now-ask-google-to-remove-links-about-you/. remove arrest record from google Archives . (1970). Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://erasemugshots.com/tag/remove-arrest-record-from-google/. David Kravets. (1970). Mug. Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from https://www.wired.com/2011/08/mugshots/. Jacob Siegal. (1970). Here's the quickest way to make yourself disappear from Google .... Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://bgr.com/2014/06/25/remove-yourself-from-google/. Thorin Klosowski. (1970). How to Commit Internet Suicide and Disappear from the Web Forever. Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://lifehacker.com/5958801/how-to-commit-internet-suicide-and-disappear-from-the-web-forever. kelly. (1970). How To Remove Your Personal Information From Background .... Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://gizmodo.com/5827962/how-to-remove-your-personal-information-from-background-check-websites. removearrest.com - http://removearrest.com. (1970). Remove Arrest Mugshot Records and other files from Google. Retrieved on August 6, 2017, from http://removearrest.com/. Word Count: 13293