How to remove information from Google
How to remove information from Google ? Contact us at webcides@gmail.com for a free and confidential consultation .
I don't control the web page If you don’t control the web page hosting the content, here is how you can try to remove it from Google Search results: If the content no longer exists on the source web page (to remove cached results) If you have a Google account, and it seems that the content is no longer available, you can request that Google remove it from Google Search results, whether or not you control the page. Visit the Remove Outdated Content tool to remove the page. If the content still exists on the source web page If the information lives on a Google property such as YouTube or Blogger, see our removals troubleshooter. If the information lives on a non-Google property, try to contact the page owner and ask them to remove the content. The linked resource provides some tips if the webmaster doesn't respond or cooperate. After the source content is removed, don't forget to remove the information from Google search results as described in The content no longer exists on the source web page Please remember that Google doesn’t own the web; we just help you find stuff on it. If you don’t like something on a website that Google doesn’t own, we really can’t make the website owner remove it, we can only remove it from Google Search results (if appropriate). Sorry! However, if you think there is a legal or Google Policy violation, see More Information below. If you don’t control the web page hosting the content, here is how you can try to remove it from Google Search results: If the content no longer exists on the source web page (to remove cached results) If you have a Google account, and it seems that the content is no longer available, you can request that Google remove it from Google Search results, whether or not you control the page. Visit the Remove Outdated Content tool to remove the page. If the content still exists on the source web page If the information lives on a Google property such as YouTube or Blogger, see our removals troubleshooter. If the information lives on a non-Google property, try to contact the page owner and ask them to remove the content. The linked resource provides some tips if the webmaster doesn't respond or cooperate. After the source content is removed, don't forget to remove the information from Google search results as described in The content no longer exists on the source web page Please remember that Google doesn’t own the web; we just help you find stuff on it. If you don’t like something on a website that Google doesn’t own, we really can’t make the website owner remove it, we can only remove it from Google Search results (if appropriate). Sorry! However, if you think there is a legal or Google Policy violation, see More Information below. David Davis MP, the former shadow home secretary, however welcomed the ruling as a “sensible decision”. “The European Court has ruled that Google must give individuals the right to control their own data, and ask the owners of search engines to remove results,” he said. “There will be a presumption that companies like Google must remove links to such information unless there are particular public interest reasons justifying the public in having access to the information. This is a sensible decision but it is only the first step in people having property rights in their own information. The presumption by internet companies and others that they can use people’s personal information in any way they see fit is wrong, and can only happen because the legal framework in most states is still in the last century when it comes to property rights in personal information.” Lobbyists the Open Rights Group said they too believe that today’s ruling by the ECJ could pose a threat to free speech online. Javier Ruiz, the group's Policy Director said "We need to take into account individuals' right to privacy but if search engines are forced to remove links to legitimate content that is already in the public domain but not the content itself, it could lead to online censorship. This case has major implications for all kind of internet intermediaries, not just search engines." He added that today’s ruling goes against the opinion given by Advocate General Niilo Jaaskinen last June when he said that Google should not be responsible for content published by third parties. The judges said "If, following a search made on the basis of a person's name, the list of results displays a link to a web page which contains information on the person in question, that data subject may approach the operator directly and, where the operator does not grant his request, bring the matter before the competent authorities in order to obtain, under certain conditions, the removal of that link from the list of results". The EU moved to make the right to be forgotten law early last year, but it had not been tested in court. Under the legislation, embarrassing, inaccurate or simply personal data will have to be deleted from the internet and company databases if consumers ask. The move also means that social networks such as Facebook or Twitter could have to comply with users' requests to delete everything they have ever published about themselves online. It will also mean that consumers will be able to force companies that hold data about them, such as for Tesco's Clubcard, to remove it. At the time EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding claimed her “proposals will help build trust in online services because people will be better informed about their rights and more in control of their information”. Concerns about the costs of implementing the new laws were compounded by added fears about what Facebook would do, for instance, when a user asked to have a picture of themselves removed, even though it had been taken by somebody else who wished to keep it on their page. Today's ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) came after a Spanish man complained to the Spanish data protection agency that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google's search results infringed his privacy. Mario Costeja Gonzalez was concerned that a Google search on him brought up two stories dating from 1998 from the website of La Vanguardia, the Spanish newspaper, concerning an auction of his real estate to repay social security debts. The Spanish data protection agency rejected the claim against the newspaper which published the auction notice because the reports had been lawfully published, but it upheld the complaint against Google Inc and its Spanish subsidiary, saying the company should make it impossible to access the stories about Mr Gonzales through its search engine in the future. Google appealed, and the case was referred to the European Court of Justice which has now upheld the original decision. It said allowing access to personal details through search engines indefinitely was incompatible with EU data protection directives. The case is one of 180 similar cases in Spain whose complainants want Google to delete their personal information from the Web. The company says forcing it to remove such data amounts to censorship. "An Internet search engine operator is responsible for the processing that it carries out of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties," the court said. Spain's data regulator had previously said EU judges must consider if EU citizens have to go to US courts to exercise their privacy rights and whether Google "is responsible for the damage the diffusion of personal information can cause for citizens". Today's ruling means anyone who wanted information about them removed from search results should be able to directly approach the operator, such as Google. If they fail to act, the individual should be able to go to a "supervisory" or judicial authority in their country, the judges added. Results may not have to be deleted if the individual is a public figure and there is a “preponderant interest” in the information remaining accessible. Google Wallet and Google Play are wonderful services, and they're very convenient when you want to make a quick movie rental or order a new album. However, as easy as it is to put your payment information into an account to authorize a purchase, taking it back out isn't exactly difficult, but you do have to know where to look for it. Maybe you just wanted to buy your kid some Google Play credit and forgot it'll save your information. Maybe you just decided to buy your friend an app yourself since they don't quite understand the concept of buying apps yet. Whatever the case, you want your payment information back before they get into trouble with it. Here's how to do it. You probably entered your account information in Google Play — more specifically a Google Wallet popup in Google Play — but in order to remove it, you have to delve into Google Wallet's main app or site. If doing this in the app, you'll need the Google Wallet PIN for the account and if you're doing this online you'll need the Google Account password, so make sure to keep the account holder nearby if you're pulling your info out of your kid/partner/friend's account. Once you're in, you'll go to Payment methods if you're on the site or Cards & accounts in the app. You'll be presented with a list of all your accounts. In the website, you can remove an account directly on this page, whereas in the app you'll have to open the payment profile and then click the three-dot options in the top right corner, which will reveal the option to remove the card/account. Removing credit cards, bank accounts and Paypal accounts all follow the same procedure in Google Wallet. Tap remove, then confirm that you do indeed want to remove your account information. Once finished, you'll return to your payment list, a little shorter than before. That's all there is to it, just remember that removing a payment method can lead to cancellations for any subscriptions that are tied to it like Google Play Music All Access, and removing a payment method won't refund any purchases your little ruffian was able to make before you remembered you left them your card. You can ask Google to remove your sensitive personal information, like your bank account number, or an image of your handwritten signature, or a nude or sexually explicit image or video of you that’s been shared without your consent, from Google search results. What Google will remove See our Removals Policies to learn what information Google will remove. If you want to remove a photo, profile link, or webpage from Google Search results, you usually need to ask the website owner (webmaster) to remove the information. Why contact the webmaster? Even if Google deletes the site or image from our search results, the webpage still exists and can be found through the URL to the site, social media sharing, or other search engines. This is why your best option is to contact the webmaster, who can remove the page entirely. If a photo or information shows up in Google search results, it just means that the information exists on the Internet and it doesn’t mean that Google endorses it. If information was deleted from a webpage, but still shows in Google Search results for your domain, you can ask Google to update or remove the page! Hover has no control over Google search results. How to remove outdated content Remove a page from search results that was already deleted from your domain 1. Go to Google's Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see the message "This content is gone," click Request removal. Note: If you see the message "The page is still live on the web" but the page has already been removed, click Submit feedback and we’ll look into the issue. Remove an outdated page description or cache Follow the instructions below if the short description of the page in search results (the snippet) or the cached version of the page is out of date. 1. Go to the Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see “Has the site owner updated or removed the content,” select Yes. 5. Select The snippet and cache are outdated. 6. Explain exactly what is outdated about the snippet or page. In this box, enter in a word that is on the old version of the page from Google’s search results that is not on the current version of the page. For example, the cached page might show your name, which isn’t in the new version. In this case, don’t write "my name has been removed," but instead type your name as it appears in the cached version. 7. Click Request Removal. Check the status of your removal request After you submit your request to Google, you’ll see it listed on the Remove outdated content page. You can go back to that page to check the status of your request. Do google stores the credit card information at time of creating account for google play ? Yes it does. But you can skip inputting credit card information during account creation if Yes how to remove the informations ? and You may consult this Go to your Google Play account. Select Add a payment method or Edit payment method. If prompted, sign in to payments.google.com and follow the on-screen instructions. Open the Google Play Store app Google Play. Touch the Menu icon Google Play Store Menu Icon > My account > Add payment method or More payment settings. If prompted, sign in to payments.google.com and follow the on-screen instructions. Do removing the credit card info from google play has any problem with my developer account ? I do not have such account so I am not really sure. But I guess it won't be a problem. You would just have to setup again your payment method when you need to pay something (or receive payment?). Few months back, I have created two Google business listing (different locations) for my Business on a single Google account. Somehow, I have to remove one of them. After reading Google business listing removal process, I have deleted it from my Google Business Listing account. Now, technically I have only single Business Listing. After spending one month, it is observed that deleted Business Listing is still in Google search. I need to know How to remove it from Google Search? How to deindex from search engine? How to remove outdated content Remove a page from search results that was already deleted from your domain 1. Go to Google's Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see the message "This content is gone," click Request removal. Note: If you see the message "The page is still live on the web" but the page has already been removed, click Submit feedback and we’ll look into the issue. Remove an outdated page description or cache Follow the instructions below if the short description of the page in search results (the snippet) or the cached version of the page is out of date. 1. Go to the Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see “Has the site owner updated or removed the content,” select Yes. 5. Select The snippet and cache are outdated. 6. Explain exactly what is outdated about the snippet or page. In this box, enter in a word that is on the old version of the page from Google’s search results that is not on the current version of the page. For example, the cached page might show your name, which isn’t in the new version. In this case, don’t write "my name has been removed," but instead type your name as it appears in the cached version. 7. Click Request Removal. Why are my Myspace photos and information in Google search?Google will crawl a website to index image and page URL’s updating those results to their search engine. Myspace has a high Google search rank so there’s a possibility that your profile will show up in Google search if it’s public. Why is my deleted content still showing up in Google search?Deleted content will still show in Google search because Google caches search results, which means that deleted content is still visible and searchable. Until Google updates its search index to reflect the recent change, links to the profile and images will still be available. Links to deleted content will return an invalid page error. Have you finally woken up to the fact that you need more privacy online? If you want to learn how to remove information from Google you have probably realized just how much data is being collected about you. This data includes your web search history, voice search history, what websites you visited, and what advertisements you’ve clicked on. In short, Google has collected …everything about you online, and offline is their next target. Google is not the only online entity collecting information from you either. There are a number of online businesses who make it their business to track you online. All of this information could then be accessed by potential employers, and governmental agencies. We’ve all did dumb things when we were younger. Now it’s time to take responsibility to remove this information from Google, and other online sources. Tips If someone else has the same name as you do and you worry about it tarnishing your reputation, or you weren't successful in removing embarrassing links to your name, you may want to consider using a middle initial or including your full middle name, both when you're active online and on your resume. Use a pen name and change it often. Never use it in a way that might link it to your real name. Conversely, if you are trying to bury skeletons in your closet you may want to create a professional blog using your professional name and contact information. Post pictures of successful events and staff gatherings, post newsletter information about different charity experiences, post photography, blog about your industry and how great it is. Keep it all very tasteful and very oriented towards what a professional overachiever would have. Just don't make it seem like an online resume. There are also services, some free and some paid, which will help clean your name in search results for you (e.g. LinkedIn). Learn to view the search results with your name through the eyes of a potential employer. It's been observed that the majority of executive recruiters routinely look into candidates by searching the Internet (according to a survey by ExecuNet.) . Make a donations to non-profits so you'll show up in a list of donors. Not only does it helpyou look good—positive search results are like gold—it helps the non-profit be successful. Some employers will include employee names and pictures on their websites. Ask your employer to use only part of your name or a nickname on the website. If you are to leave, ask them to promptly update the website to omit your information. Use Google's removal request tool to ask Google to remove search results or cached content. Start posting on industry related websites with your professional name and contact details. Make sure everything is well worded and articulate and avoid political or offensive posts. Attend chamber or professional organizations meetings that have websites and take advantage of photo ops with important people. Sign up for alumni pages and social/professional networks. Hopefully the professional references will push your naked bar dancing pictures farther back in the Google search. In addition to not using your full name online, you should also not use the same e-mail address that you do professionally. Recruiters may search for your e-mail address right after searching for your name. If you try to subscribe to a social or network site and cannot use an alias or screen name there is a good chance your information may appear in Google searches. LinkedIn is one site that won't allow people to use aliases and requires your full name. Also beware of alumni pages as those seem benign but usually have your personal information (spouse, kids, job and email). Invitation sites may also allow your email or name to show up on searches allowing people to see the types of parties you are invited to. If someone else has the same name as you do and you worry about it tarnishing your reputation, or you weren't successful in removing embarrassing links to your name, you may want to consider using a middle initial or including your full middle name, both when you're active online and on your resume. Use a pen name and change it often. Never use it in a way that might link it to your real name. Conversely, if you are trying to bury skeletons in your closet you may want to create a professional blog using your professional name and contact information. Post pictures of successful events and staff gatherings, post newsletter information about different charity experiences, post photography, blog about your industry and how great it is. Keep it all very tasteful and very oriented towards what a professional overachiever would have. Just don't make it seem like an online resume. There are also services, some free and some paid, which will help clean your name in search results for you (e.g. LinkedIn). Learn to view the search results with your name through the eyes of a potential employer. It's been observed that the majority of executive recruiters routinely look into candidates by searching the Internet (according to a survey by ExecuNet.) . Make a donations to non-profits so you'll show up in a list of donors. Not only does it helpyou look good—positive search results are like gold—it helps the non-profit be successful. Some employers will include employee names and pictures on their websites. Ask your employer to use only part of your name or a nickname on the website. If you are to leave, ask them to promptly update the website to omit your information. Use Google's removal request tool to ask Google to remove search results or cached content. Start posting on industry related websites with your professional name and contact details. Make sure everything is well worded and articulate and avoid political or offensive posts. Attend chamber or professional organizations meetings that have websites and take advantage of photo ops with important people. Sign up for alumni pages and social/professional networks. Hopefully the professional references will push your naked bar dancing pictures farther back in the Google search. In addition to not using your full name online, you should also not use the same e-mail address that you do professionally. Recruiters may search for your e-mail address right after searching for your name. If you try to subscribe to a social or network site and cannot use an alias or screen name there is a good chance your information may appear in Google searches. LinkedIn is one site that won't allow people to use aliases and requires your full name. Also beware of alumni pages as those seem benign but usually have your personal information (spouse, kids, job and email). Invitation sites may also allow your email or name to show up on searches allowing people to see the types of parties you are invited to. Please remember that Google doesn’t own the web; we just help you find stuff on it. If you don’t like something on a website that Google doesn’t own, we really can’t make the website owner remove it, we can only remove it from Google Search results (if appropriate). Sorry! However, if you think there is a legal or Google Policy violation, see More Information below. If you have a Google account, and it seems that the content is no longer available, you can request that Google remove it from Google Search results, whether or not you control the page. Visit the Remove Outdated Content tool to remove the page. Michael April 17, 2015 at 8:21 pm Readers should also be aware of Start Page as a search engine. In my opinion, far superior to Duck Duck Go. Readers should also be aware that using TOR raises red flags with the ISP., not to mention it being extremely slow. If one values privacy and has nothing to hide, then SR Ware Iron is a better option. From advanced settings, one can block cookies, java script, plug in play, etc. They can also add Ghostery as a file extension to block trackers. In re to VPN, Cyber Ghost is one of the best out there. Both their paid and free versions give you the ability to mask your OS system, anti fingerprinting, web blockers, etc. Cyber Ghost also claims not to keep IP logs of its users. There are also websites out there that can test your online anonymity. I highly recommend using one of them before making the assumption that you're in good shape. Protonmail is an excellent service for web based email. GMX is useless. Users cannot delete their accounts, only deactivate them. Search anywhere on the internet for a comparison of privacy features and the ability to remove yourself as a customer. GMX is at the bottom of the list. Although the article was very good, I would have really liked to see more of a discussion regarding Google's data retention policy. You spent a lot of time talking about how one should not use Google and their information being kept but the article fails to discuss the retention policies for deleted emails in their live and back up servers. Retention policies for deleting Google Plus, and retention policies for those who are signed into their Google account doing web searches as opposed to those who do web searches and not signed into a Google account. Reply Readers should also be aware of Start Page as a search engine. In my opinion, far superior to Duck Duck Go. Readers should also be aware that using TOR raises red flags with the ISP., not to mention it being extremely slow. If one values privacy and has nothing to hide, then SR Ware Iron is a better option. From advanced settings, one can block cookies, java script, plug in play, etc. They can also add Ghostery as a file extension to block trackers. In re to VPN, Cyber Ghost is one of the best out there. Both their paid and free versions give you the ability to mask your OS system, anti fingerprinting, web blockers, etc. Cyber Ghost also claims not to keep IP logs of its users. There are also websites out there that can test your online anonymity. I highly recommend using one of them before making the assumption that you're in good shape. Protonmail is an excellent service for web based email. GMX is useless. Users cannot delete their accounts, only deactivate them. Search anywhere on the internet for a comparison of privacy features and the ability to remove yourself as a customer. GMX is at the bottom of the list. Although the article was very good, I would have really liked to see more of a discussion regarding Google's data retention policy. You spent a lot of time talking about how one should not use Google and their information being kept but the article fails to discuss the retention policies for deleted emails in their live and back up servers. Retention policies for deleting Google Plus, and retention policies for those who are signed into their Google account doing web searches as opposed to those who do web searches and not signed into a Google account. If you use robots.txt, Google will not crawl a page; however, if it finds a link to your page on another site, with descriptive text, it might generate a search result from that. If you have included a “noindex” tag on the page, Google won’t see it, because Google must crawl (fetch) the page in order to see that tag, but Google won’t fetch your page if there’s a robots.txt file blocking it! Therefore, you should let Google crawl the page and see the “noindex” tag or header. It sounds counterintuitive, but you need to let Google try to fetch the page and fail (because of password protection) or see the “noindex” tag to ensure it’s omitted from search results. If you need a page to be removed, then you need to get the webmaster to remove the page. Google is a search engine, but they do not actually control the content on the web, so they cannot remove the page. While Google can remove the page from search results, the page would remain accessible by other means, unless the webmaster removes the page. If you are the webmaster, you can do this with the URL removal tool in Webmaster Tools. In order to request a removal, you simply have to fill out a form that Google provides. However, this isn’t a surefire way to remove whatever you want from search results. Google looks at each request carefully and make the final decision on whether to remove it or not. According to Google, they have only approved about half of all removal requests. Please remember that Google doesn’t own the web; we just help you find stuff on it. If you don’t like something on a website that Google doesn’t own, we really can’t make the website owner remove it, we can only remove it from Google Search results (if appropriate). Sorry! Although the article was very good, I would have really liked to see more of a discussion regarding Google's data retention policy. You spent a lot of time talking about how one should not use Google and their information being kept but the article fails to discuss the retention policies for deleted emails in their live and back up servers. Retention policies for deleting Google Plus, and retention policies for those who are signed into their Google account doing web searches as opposed to those who do web searches and not signed into a Google account. To submit a claim of this type, go to Google's URL Removal Tool. Just submit the address of the bad content and Google will review the situation. If the case meets Google's guidelines, Google will manually remove the page from its search database. As you surf the bitstream, you leave a digital trail of words and photos that are picked up and indexed by Google's robots, then offered for anybody to see. By the time your name hits Google, there is virtually nothing you can do about it—even if you're a U.S Presidential candidate. Google has claimed that they do not remove content from search results unless that content is illegal or violates their guidelines. However, there are things you can to un-Google yourself, and steps you can take to reduce your exposure in the future. Delete obsolete accounts. While old accounts may not contain embarrassing information, it's always a good idea to remove information that's no longer current. If you had a Myspace page back at the turn of the century, and you haven't visited it for 15 years, it's time to shut it down. Chances are, you have changed significantly in those 15 years, in both style and substance. If somebody is searching for you, no need for them to see that side of you! Consider deleting any online account that contains information that could be embarrassing. Google results are based on relevance, and if the source (your old account) is gone, there's very little relevance there. Even if you have a completely unique name, the result will be pushed far down on the list. Only the most dedicated snoop will even read past the top of the page. Change any personal information on sites such as Facebook, or set the privacy so that personal information is not visible to anybody but you. Change your name. While the links may still be active on Google, changing your name on the account page may at least leave the searcher puzzled over where they landed. Unfortunately, it's often hard to remove information from the Internet. Even if the original is taken down, copies might still be scattered around, and those copies are just a Google search away.That's not Google's fault by the way; it's just pointing to information that it finds. However, because Google is the go-to place to find things, many people think it controls what appears on the Internet. Google will remove certain types of information from its search results. For example, Google will remove Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, images of your signature and racy or sexual images that were uploaded without your permission. Once you remove this information from Google using the tactics above, and then remove more information using Deseat.me, you will have removed a considerable amount of your online data. You’ll be experiencing more online privacy, and you will be better protecting your information online. Judges in the European Court of Justice ruled that Google cannot link to personal information about an individual, although the ruling only compels Google to remove the link rather than the removal of the information from the web itself. This means users of Facebook, Twitter and other social media can still share personal information about others so long as it remains online. To request to have personal information removed from Google Search results, use the remove information from Google page. If you have information you’d like removed for legal reasons, use the legal removals page instead. Google Wallet and Google Play are wonderful services, and they're very convenient when you want to make a quick movie rental or order a new album. However, as easy as it is to put your payment information into an account to authorize a purchase, taking it back out isn't exactly difficult, but you do have to know where to look for it. Maybe you just wanted to buy your kid some Google Play credit and forgot it'll save your information. Maybe you just decided to buy your friend an app yourself since they don't quite understand the concept of buying apps yet. Whatever the case, you want your payment information back before they get into trouble with it. Removing credit cards, bank accounts and Paypal accounts all follow the same procedure in Google Wallet. Tap remove, then confirm that you do indeed want to remove your account information. Now that you've submitted your removal request, all you can do is wait on Google. The company will analyze your request and will determine whether the information you're looking to remove truly breaks one of its policies. If so, your link will be removed from Google search results. Cached results and snippets will also be removed. At some point in the process of you reaching out to get content updated to be more to your liking, or outright removed, there will be a somewhat brief opportunity where the website’s cache is inconsistent with the displayed content. If the content is removed or changed, pounce and file a remove URL request. Now, in some cases Google will just temporarily remove the snippet, which can impact click through rates (CTR) and thus on lower engagement the piece drifts lower; in other cases, if the page was removed, this will get it dropped from the index faster. Remove a page from search results that was already deleted from your domain 1. Go to Google's Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see the message "This content is gone," click Request removal. Note: If you see the message "The page is still live on the web" but the page has already been removed, click Submit feedback and we’ll look into the issue. Remove an outdated page description or cache Follow the instructions below if the short description of the page in search results (the snippet) or the cached version of the page is out of date. 1. Go to the Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see “Has the site owner updated or removed the content,” select Yes. 5. Select The snippet and cache are outdated. 6. Explain exactly what is outdated about the snippet or page. In this box, enter in a word that is on the old version of the page from Google’s search results that is not on the current version of the page. For example, the cached page might show your name, which isn’t in the new version. In this case, don’t write "my name has been removed," but instead type your name as it appears in the cached version. 7. Click Request Removal. Thank you so very much! I had not allocated my google business complaints through the right channels. Your multi pronged approach to remove complains is enlightening. I am trying the first approach, through Google, and will keep you posted. With the Kindest Of Regards. Robert Young While this can be extremely beneficial for some, it can be a nightmare for others. For those in the second category, looking up, “how to remove my name from google” is probably your most frequent Google search since it seems like this would be the best option. When you tap that button, a drop-down will appear. From that drop-down, tap Remove Location and then, when prompted, tap REMOVE. The information will be stripped from the photo (Figure B) and you can feel safe in sharing that image on your social network. Removing search results for a page that you control won’t prevent someone who has a link from sharing that link with others. People can have links to your unlisted page because they visited it earlier, or someone sent it to them, or because other pages link to it. Therefore, if you really want to hide or remove your information, you have to do more than just remove it from search results. Sadly, receiving a fake review on your Google My Business profile is not a rare occurrence. In fact, it is quite common and something many businesses have experienced. Both Yelp and Amazon have sued fake review posters and in New York the State Attorney General took action against 19 NY based companies involved in fake reviews back in 2013. Legal action hasn’t stopped or prevented fake reviews from continuing to be published, nor has paying huge fines, but that doesn’t mean as a business owner there is no way to fight back. Trying to have a fake or spammy Google review removed can sometimes feel as frustrating as receiving the review (some call into question if the guidelines or spam algos even work), however; it is still important to make attempts to have the review removed, even though there is no guarantee that Google will take it down. What to Do When You’ve Received a Fake Review: Normally when searching a name in Google, you’ll see a lot of results for social networking sites. The first plan of actions should be to create accounts on all the major social sites like Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Linkedin, PinInterest, FourSquare, Meetup, etc, etc. It’s also worth noting that you really have to actively use these services for Google to show the results higher. Don’t expect blank profiles with your name to show up high in the results. One of the most common requests via our contact form is from individuals seeking to remove information from Google. Yes, this is a piece of what we endeavor to accomplish via our online reputation management service, but in many cases the individuals requesting assistance simply won’t be able to afford a specialized agency like us, so here’s a brief primer on some ways to accomplish the task that anyone can do. I am purposefully leaving out the more complex methods that require programming or search penalty knowledge (that’ll be another post that I promise to publish). Information in Google Search results is taken from a source: often, but not always, a web page. You need to know the source of that content, and who controls that resource, in order to block or remove it. If it's a site's policy to not remove content, ask whether they can remove your name from the post or whether they can block the content from appearing in search engines. In extreme cases you might need to get a lawyer involved, but save the legal threats as a last resort. Once you're in, you'll go to Payment methods if you're on the site or Cards & accounts in the app. You'll be presented with a list of all your accounts. In the website, you can remove an account directly on this page, whereas in the app you'll have to open the payment profile and then click the three-dot options in the top right corner, which will reveal the option to remove the card/account. Unfortunately, private website operators are under no obligation to remove your posts. So, when contacting these sites be polite and clearly state why you want the post removed. Hopefully they'll actually follow through and remove them. Yes, Google, the big bogeyman. Google has a mixed record when it comes to privacy. They have a whole army of lawyers who have tried to protect users information in the past, but that is heavily outweighed by their huge missteps. 5. Once you click that radial, Google asks you where you "saw the information you want to have removed." Since we're focused on Google search results, click the button next to the second option. Let's say there's a webpage with information about you on it you'd like to get rid of. Like your former employer's staff page, months after you've changed jobs. You reach out to get them to update the page. They do but when you Google your name, the page still shows up in your search results -- even though your name isn't anywhere to be found when you click the link. This means the old version of the page is cached on Google's servers. To learn more about what Google considers to be “sensitive information”, visit Google’s help forum.5 Here’s a sneak peek below, but it’s definitely worth checking out the full page. While some U.S. companies are starting to adopt European privacy laws, it's unlikely the "right to be forgotten" will be available to U.S. citizens anytime soon. Yet, it is still possible to remove your past from Google's search results. You just have to go about it a different way. Javier Ruiz, the group's Policy Director said "We need to take into account individuals' right to privacy but if search engines are forced to remove links to legitimate content that is already in the public domain but not the content itself, it could lead to online censorship. This case has major implications for all kind of internet intermediaries, not just search engines." He added that today’s ruling goes against the opinion given by Advocate General Niilo Jaaskinen last June when he said that Google should not be responsible for content published by third parties. 1. Go to Google's Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see the message "This content is gone," click Request removal. Note: If you see the message "The page is still live on the web" but the page has already been removed, click Submit feedback and we’ll look into the issue. Follow the instructions below if the short description of the page in search results (the snippet) or the cached version of the page is out of date. 1. Go to the Remove outdated content page. 2. In the "Enter URL of outdated content" box, paste the URL of the page. (Learn how to find the URL of the page) 3. Click Request removal. 4. If you see “Has the site owner updated or removed the content,” select Yes. 5. Select The snippet and cache are outdated. 6. Explain exactly what is outdated about the snippet or page. In this box, enter in a word that is on the old version of the page from Google’s search results that is not on the current version of the page. For example, the cached page might show your name, which isn’t in the new version. In this case, don’t write "my name has been removed," but instead type your name as it appears in the cached version. 7. Click Request Removal. Having a solid review strategy in place that helps you grow your reviews on your Google listing and multiple third-party sites is not only a deterrent for fake review spammers it’s good for your business, your local rankings and building your reputation. A Negative Review Does Not Equal a Fake Review Negative reviews happen. No business is perfect and not every single customer will be satisfied, mistakes will be made. But also, negative reviews are not all bad news. While hearing someone had a negative customer experience sucks, it’s an opportunity to make things better. Negative Reviews: Provide honest feedback that you can turn around and use to improve your business or make changes. Create trust. Seeing only positive reviews of a company can result in people questioning the authenticity of the reviews. Seeing a few sprinkles of negative reviews creates a level of trust. Create opportunities for turning something bad into something good. You won’t be able to please everyone, but if you can make things right for someone, why not try? If you can take that negative review and turn it into a positive one, that will be noticed. How you respond and how you react will be what other’s are judging. You Got This! Don’t let spammers get the best of you with a fake review. Stay on top of your reviews, always flag and report fake reviews (even if they are a challenge to remove), and have a solid review strategy in place. Do you have any fake review horror stories to share? Or better yet, any awesome pro-tips to help other businesses who are dealing with a fake review? Let us know in the comments below! Even if Google deletes the site or image from our search results, the webpage still exists and can be found through the URL to the site, social media sharing, or other search engines. This is why your best option is to contact the webmaster, who can remove the page entirely. Your personal information, where you live, your wedding information, and anything else personal may be located online and in many cases the aggregators who pulled this stuff did so without your permission. Here are ways that you can get rid of unwanted information on Google. You can use the feedback link underneath the answer in Google Search results to tell us if we’ve gotten something wrong. You can also use structured data to provide an updated logo, contact information, and social profiles for information that you provide. Keep in mind that information in the Knowledge Graph may come from multiple sources. For legal requests, see here. The European Union seems to agree. That's why it ruled that people have the "right to be forgotten." In other words, if a European asks Google to stop displaying certain links in a search result, Google has to do it. Following the court ruling, Google created an online form that allows individuals to file data removal requests. If you find a search link you'd like Google to delete, Forget.me guides you through the entire process. 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. Back to the discussion about Google, my research has shown that Gmail deletes emails from active servers from 60-90 days. According to a Quora posting, a Google engineer hinted that it can take up to 180 days for your emails to be completely deleted from live and backup servers. That's why Google is so successful, and why people find it extremely difficult to cut the cord - because Google has set up, and is maintaining, an infrastructure. Where you don't need to go very far for what you need, and it all plugs into one another. Mark O'Neill April 17, 2015 at 10:41 am That's why Google is so successful, and why people find it extremely difficult to cut the cord - because Google has set up, and is maintaining, an infrastructure. Where you don't need to go very far for what you need, and it all plugs into one another. Reply Outstanding article and advice! Last December, one of my small business clients got a solicitation from an online reviews business citing a recent bad Google review and offering to help. Funny thing was that this bad review appeared just a few hours before the solicitation email. The reviewer was not a customer. Was there collusion between the fake reviewer and the reviews assistance solicitation? Can’t prove it, but I’m suspicious. Anyway, the GMB small business team was very helpful and removed the fake review for violation of Google’s guidelines. 2. Tweet the Small Business Support Team via Twitter The small business team is knowledgeable and also takes around 24 – 48 hours to get in touch with you (no guarantee though). Sign in to Twitter. Send a Tweet from your company account to the Google Small Biz team. Once you hear back from someone, explain the situation and go from there. 3. Ask the Google Community For Help If you have a specific question with regards to the spam policy or are seeking advice from other community members, you can use the Support Forum to get answers. Go to the Spam & Policy Forum in GMB. You can Search previous questions of issues that are similar to yours for a solution, or you can ask a question about your spammy/fake review problem. There are some really awesome community experts that are extremely helpful and can escalate and report your problems, as well as community managers that can assist. Make Your Case Okay, so you have finally got in touch with an associate from the small business support team, now what? Well, you have to make a case and do your best to show why the review is false, how it violates their policies, why it should be removed, any images, links, or other details that backup your claim. After you report it to a support associate and make your case, they will advise you of whether or not they will escalate the review(s) to a “specialist,” this specialist makes the determines the outcome. Once a decision has been made you will receive a phone call or email confirmation from the small business support associate who was helping you. Ever since the Home Depot hack, where my wife's VISA number was stolen and used and my DEBIT card was preemptively canceled by my credit union, I've been using Google Wallet/Wallet Card as my security against fraud. I add a certain budgeted amount to the card each week and use/carry it exclusively. I feel like there's more layers of security with Google Wallet. I just discovered my payment method has been on my daughter's phone for months; luckily she didn't know. The phone asked for her Google password, which of course she knows, but it didn't ask for my Paypal password, which she doesn't. I have removed it now, but will I have to do this every time? Is there no way to prevent Google from saving my payment details in the first place? Today's ruling means anyone who wanted information about them removed from search results should be able to directly approach the operator, such as Google. If they fail to act, the individual should be able to go to a "supervisory" or judicial authority in their country, the judges added. Results may not have to be deleted if the individual is a public figure and there is a “preponderant interest” in the information remaining accessible. Once something is online, it's often stored in so many places that it's effectively immortal. The best way to get around this is to avoid it. Make sure that whatever you place online is something that can stick around for years, otherwise consider not putting it online at all. Be careful. Asking your employer to remove or obfuscate your name on their web site could backfire when future potential employers at Company Y search for you online—and find no record of you at Company X, giving the impression that you never worked for the company listed on your resume. Modern search engines are wary of the information added to the meta tags by the web page author, and are seen as an attempt to influence what is returned in search results. 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. You need to go to each of the sites where you found information, then ask them to remove it. If it sounds like a hassle, it is. That's why public figures pay companies huge sums of money to do this for them. Be sure you have a cup of coffee and a stress ball handy. For whatever reason, I’d say less than half of the people looking to remove a negative piece of information from the web get this far, but it is the most obvious. Is the piece libelous? Threaten legal action. If it simply unfavorable? Suggest an edit that makes the story better – just be prepared to support your edit request with data (and sometimes money). Is it stolen content? The editor should be amenable to your request; if not, it may be purposeful and you’ll need record of your attempts later. If you're reading this, it's highly likely your personal information is available to the public. And by "public" I mean everyone everywhere. And while you can never remove yourself completely from the internet, there are ways to minimize your online footprint. Here are five ways to do it. We apply this policy on a case-by-case basis. If we believe that a removal request is being used to try and remove other, non-personal information from search results, we will deny the request. Warnings Once something is online, it's often stored in so many places that it's effectively immortal. The best way to get around this is to avoid it. Make sure that whatever you place online is something that can stick around for years, otherwise consider not putting it online at all. Be careful. Asking your employer to remove or obfuscate your name on their web site could backfire when future potential employers at Company Y search for you online—and find no record of you at Company X, giving the impression that you never worked for the company listed on your resume. Modern search engines are wary of the information added to the meta tags by the web page author, and are seen as an attempt to influence what is returned in search results. If you do happen to share your photos by link, you can have Google Photos automatically strip the geolocation information, before the photo link is shared. Do note, this only works when sharing a photo via a link. To do this, follow these steps: Some people may prefer to just go the easy route and just delete the whole Google account. But I take the view that you may want to use the account again in the future. It’s not going anywhere, so why not just leave it? Better than deleting it, then regretting it (especially if your account has a really cool username). Just delete the sensitive information, then leave it untouched until if and when you need it again. Think about which social networks you have profiles on. Aside from the big ones, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, do you still have public accounts on sites like Tumblr, Google+ or even MySpace? What about your Reddit account? Which shopping sites have you registered on? Common ones might include information stored on Amazon, Gap.com, Macys.com and others. Remember that the Internet is a big place, and you might not like or agree with everything that you see. Google's goal is to identify what information from the web is relevant to users' queries, not to determine whether that material is in some sense wrongful. Tag your content. If you want to continue publishing information under your name but don't want it appearing in any search results, use an HTML metatag:
This only applies if you have your own website and access to the underlying code, as it stops most search engines from indexing (cataloging) your page or following the links on it. The tag must go in the section of a document. If you like, you can leave out the "nofollow" bit, which allows the search engines to follow the links, but not index the page. To prevent only Google from indexing the site, change the term "robots" to "googlebot". Remember, website operators are under no obligation to remove content unless they get a court order. But most of them will give you a fair hearing if you're polite and explain that the content is untrue, hurts your reputation or is making it hard for you to get a job. A final tactic which is less effective than the above approach, but is also one of the easiest, is to have as many of you and your friends to navigate to the problematic query and click the “Send Feedback” link. If the problematic result is listed frequently enough, it may get addressed. This usually doesn’t help much, unless the content you want to remove is also listed in the knowledge graph, algorithmically sourced rich snippets – in this case, they are more keen to act on the “Feedback” link if enough people complain. The move also means that social networks such as Facebook or Twitter could have to comply with users' requests to delete everything they have ever published about themselves online. It will also mean that consumers will be able to force companies that hold data about them, such as for Tesco's Clubcard, to remove it. Don’t let spammers get the best of you with a fake review. Stay on top of your reviews, always flag and report fake reviews (even if they are a challenge to remove), and have a solid review strategy in place. To get rid of these accounts, go to your account settings and just look for an option to either deactivate, remove or close your account. Depending on the account, you may find it under Security or Privacy, or something similar. 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. Let’s first assume that you’re in a similar situation with some of the people contacting us – there’s a negative article ranking for your name and you want it off the web. Where to start? The first few ways to get information removed involves simply reaching out to people via email and phone (do not overlook phone – it is very effective). Don’t have the contact information? If you have names and/or titles, LinkedIn + Fullcontact exist to make your life easier. Since getting information is more effective for ORM than suppressing pieces via flooded positive ORM or even negative SEO tactics, it deserves as much of your time as you can provide. Many publications self-host and will be able to brush off your attempts to trigger abuse issues, but they cannot escape their registrars. Since you already looked up the WHOIS information you can see where “Registrar Abuse Contact Email” and “Registrar Abuse Contact Phone” exist. Pick up the phone – call in with your complaint. If it is copyright infringement or libel, you have a decent shot at getting the information removed. If you don’t have initial success on the phone, send an email with your compiled information and close that your next step is to follow through on a DMCA request if you’re dealing with stolen content. Naturally, the place you want to start is Google. Do a search of your name to see what pops up, and then make a list of sites that have content you want removed. You can do an even more thorough background check to find content that doesn't show up, but for now we're going to focus on the basics. You might be tempted to just go this route instead of hassling with other websites. However, as Google notes, other search engines could still find the negative stuff about you, or anyone who actually visits the site can see it. DMCA requests do work, but can be slow and inconsistent – unfortunately this means you’ll need to file multiple requests for each Google property or product impacted, the host, the registrar, and the publication. Seem like a lot of work? It is, but it does work. To assist, here are some places to file DMCA requests, at some of the larger online institutions: 6. Explain exactly what is outdated about the snippet or page. In this box, enter in a word that is on the old version of the page from Google’s search results that is not on the current version of the page. For example, the cached page might show your name, which isn’t in the new version. In this case, don’t write "my name has been removed," but instead type your name as it appears in the cached version. This is probably the largest collection of data which Google has about you. It can also be some of the most damaging, or embarrassing, depending upon what you get up to at 3 in the morning when you should’ve gone to bed. 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. This article outlines exactly what I did, so if you want to attempt to wipe yourself off the Net too (note the word “attempt”), then you can try. It may mean going without certain “cool” online features, but be honest, is that really the end of the world? Since this subject is so vast, I will focus on the biggest bogeyman – Google (surprise, surprise). The first step is to decide what emails you are keeping, and what you can delete. With lots of storage for each person, Google has championed the idea of “never delete another thing ever again!”. But come on, let’s be honest. There’s a lot of stuff you definitely do not need to keep. Notifications for one. Vouchers which have long run out another. So start cleaning out. One quick way of doing it is to work through each of your labels and delete from each one. Or hunt down the biggest emails by knowing what to type into Gmail. Now we come to the meat and potatoes of Google’s business – web search. This is where your searches are exploited for maximum profit. Search results are “tailor-made” for you (meaning you only see what you want to see), adverts appear at the top of the page, and anything you search for can and will be used against you at some point. Searched for a cure for herpes? Then you can bet some pharmaceutical company is taking advantage of that little snippet of knowledge. Plus, as you surf around the Internet, that search will be following you around everywhere, also like a contagious infection. Next, check to see if your web history has been recorded by Google. If so, you need to wipe all of it. It may take some time, but you will feel better after doing it. Like a good cleansing. Trust me, it’ll feel good. How many YouTube videos do you watch in a month? Looking at a person’s YouTube watching history can provide a revealing look at their personality. It’s no problem if that person is watching SpongeBob, but what about terrorist videos? Bomb-making tutorials? As with everything else, Google keeps a detailed history of your watched videos, your liked videos, as well as anything you marked as “watch later”. Sadly, receiving a fake review on your Google My Business profile is not a rare occurrence. In fact, it is quite common and something many businesses have experienced. Both Yelp and Amazon have sued fake review posters and in New York the State Attorney General took action against 19 NY based companies involved in fake reviews back in 2013. Legal action hasn’t stopped or prevented fake reviews from continuing to be published, nor has paying huge fines, but that doesn’t mean as a business owner there is no way to fight back. Just as there are guidelines for leaving a review, Google has some tips for responding. Your response should not be defensive, keep it brief, and do your best to respond as you would for a negative review. B) Once a review is flagged try to wait a couple of days for a response or ideally for it to be removed, however; if the review is loaded with hate-speech, profanity, and/or has highly sensitive content, I would say escalate it immediately. Flag and report, then immediately contact a Google support team member. Start by setting up Google Alerts, it takes no more than 10 minutes. Add alerts for your brand name, website, CEO, and keywords. There are also a bunch of applications in the market that can help you with monitoring social mentions, building brand awareness, and reviews. Examples would be Mention, Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer, Brandwatch, Sprout Social, and TalkWalker. That sounds like a complicated and stressful situation. I would suggest reporting the reviews in your Google My Business dashboard. Before you report, be sure to have screenshots of all the replicated reviews and the original, so you can show how the reported reviews have violated the guidelines. You may not be able to have the original review from the actual customer removed, however, it is likely the solicited reviews from friends and family could be removed (especially if you can show proof or make a strong case against the authenticity of the reviews). Don’t forget to focus on earning reviews from happy customers, the more feedback you receive over time from a full range of customers will help create a better picture of your business and other customer experiences. The Best Defence is a Good Offence The best way to ensure that a fake review won’t be detrimental to your business is having a solid reputation management strategy in place. Building up your positive reviews by encouraging loyal and happy customers to leave you an online review is an easy way to mitigate the risks of receiving a fake review, and showcase how awesome your business is. Simple and Effective Ways You Can Grow Your Online Reviews: 1. Customer Feedback Sometimes we are blinded by the allure of those shiny review stars, but before you start asking all your customers for a review, have you checked in with them to see how they are feeling about your service or product? Reviews are the outcome of great customer service, so how is yours stacking up? There are so many opportunities for you to obtain customer feedback, here are eight easy ways to help get you started. 2. Monitor Your Brand Mentions Stay on top of what people are saying about your company. Any solid reputation management plan includes monitoring what people are saying and engaging with your audience. Start by setting up Google Alerts, it takes no more than 10 minutes. Add alerts for your brand name, website, CEO, and keywords. There are also a bunch of applications in the market that can help you with monitoring social mentions, building brand awareness, and reviews. Examples would be Mention, Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer, Brandwatch, Sprout Social, and TalkWalker. You don’t have to review your alerts every day, but schedule a small block of time once a week to review the alerts and stay on top of what people are saying about your business. 3. Start Asking For Reviews Having a solid review strategy in place is a great way to combat a fake review. Receiving consistent reviews builds up your review numbers, and provides a more complete picture of how your company truly operates. The best way to build up your online reviews is to make asking a part of your daily operating practices, and knowing that you will have to ask a lot of customers before one will leave a review. It’s nothing personal, life is busy and just because a customer doesn’t leave a review immediately, doesn’t mean they never will. Hi Brittany, That sounds like a complicated and stressful situation. I would suggest reporting the reviews in your Google My Business dashboard. Before you report, be sure to have screenshots of all the replicated reviews and the original, so you can show how the reported reviews have violated the guidelines. You may not be able to have the original review from the actual customer removed, however, it is likely the solicited reviews from friends and family could be removed (especially if you can show proof or make a strong case against the authenticity of the reviews). Don’t forget to focus on earning reviews from happy customers, the more feedback you receive over time from a full range of customers will help create a better picture of your business and other customer experiences. Good luck with working through all of this I have deleted my Facebook account, but it still shows my name and username (which I used elsewhere) when you Google search for it. On YouTube I also deleted my account, but comments that others made still come up with my name attached. I desperately want to delete them, but I do not know how. I am never getting on Facebook or YouTube again. I just want it all deleted – especially those comments with my name on them. I didn’t do anything really bad. I just replied to someone on YouTube in the video comments section. He didn’t like my reply and found out my name. I suspect it was from Facebook where I couldn’t hide or delete my email which included my username. I guess I better be careful what I say on there – will everything there be copied and put on the internet too? I just don’t know what this is all about. Anyways, I got my name deleted from the video comments section by contacting YouTube and the video uploader. If it takes months to delete this from Google cache, that’s bad news for me. In either case, once the page has been removed, you can go here to get the content removed from search results – including snippets and the cache. If you want to keep images from appearing in a Google image search, go here. What you say will show up on Google if you post it on a web page, forum, or even a comment on a YouTube page. So in all keep in mind there are some crazy people out there that take things to the extreme. I have been tempted to write many things and I usually pull back and think “Do I want this comment associated with my name?” Always remember that removing your web presence can take a great deal of time and effort. Once finished, you'll return to your payment list, a little shorter than before. That's all there is to it, just remember that removing a payment method can lead to cancellations for any subscriptions that are tied to it like Google Play Music All Access, and removing a payment method won't refund any purchases your little ruffian was able to make before you remembered you left them your card. I've got a question. I have a debit card but it doesn't have a CVC number which is one of the requirements of Google Play. I'm sure the card doesn't have this number, I asked at the bank, only their credit cards have it. So is there any way I can buy without this number? Paola1993 I've got a question. I have a debit card but it doesn't have a CVC number which is one of the requirements of Google Play. I'm sure the card doesn't have this number, I asked at the bank, only their credit cards have it. So is there any way I can buy without this number? 0 2 years ago Reply NealJ777 Is it a debit card or is it just a bank ATM card? If it's a VISA or Master Card debit card or a pre-paid card, then it's basically the same as a credit card and it does have a security number on the back of the card. I would suggest that you speak with your bank. Posted via Android Central App 0 2 years ago Reply Paola1993 It is a VISA debit card, I already spoke to my bank and the assessor said the debit cards of this bank didn't have the code. Also contacted Google Consumer Support and I'm out of luck I'm afraid. 0 2 years ago Reply If you would rather have some hands-on help taking control of your Google results, get in touch with one of our reputation advisors. You can reach our support team by using the chat feature on BrandYourself.com, give us a call at 646.863.8226, or schedule a consultation. Make changes to existing content. For content that you can control, such as Facebook pages or Twitter tweets, make changes to the page linked to in the Google results. Log into the account, follow the link from the search result itself, then either delete the post or picture, or simply modify them with something less problematic. Bury the content you don't want to be found. Use the same feature that's caused the problem to actually solve the problem! Post to multiple sites under the name that is generating the unwanted content, your offending content will be moved down the page, or even onto a second or third page. Most Internet users don't continue browsing past the first 10 search results, so join a mailing list that's frequently indexed in Google or sign up for some websites that will eventually index your name. 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. 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. In the unlikely event that an information brokerage refuses to update your information, you can submit a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission(FTC). The FTC won’t act on behalf of individuals, but if enough complaints are lodged, it may launch an investigation into the business. The Internet is the best tool in human history for finding information. Of course, depending on the information in question, you might not want it found. Whether it's an embarrassing picture of you, an angry status update or stupid video you posted, you might want it gone. Thing is, do you want those photos to have associated geolocation information? Why would you not? When you share those photos (on various social networks), that geolocation information could clue people in on your whereabouts. If you're on vacation, it could key ne'er do wells in on that fact. If your home isn't under the watch of a house sitter or a surveillance system, you could be vulnerable. You might not think so, but removing the geolocation information from your photos can, in some ways, give you a slight security enhancement—especially if you're on vacation and want to share those photos on social networking. Of course, you might also want to make sure whatever social networking you're sharing to isn't tagging your location (otherwise stripping photos of geolocation information is handily defeated). I followed ALL of the steps above: We responded to the review. We actually kind of thought it was funny how far off this reviewer was and it didn’t really bother us that the review was there, as it is very obvious to anyone that this review is not for our business. I flagged the review and provided my contact information and reason why the review was being flagged. A few days later I contacted GMB support, and I also contacted the Twitter team – just to see if there was a difference in the approach or information. Surprisingly this time, I found the small business support team more efficient. In the middle of the Twitter team’s assistance they stopped responding. Perhaps it was because they are very busy, I am not certain. I wouldn’t rule them out though, I have had positive experiences with them in the past. 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. Keeping your sensitive personal data private requires regular effort on your part, because people-search sites will continually re-add you, whenever a new piece of data appears about you online. They use automated data collection methods, so whenever something new appears about you, that information can trigger the creation of a new personal record, even if you’ve opted out. Our ReputationDefender Pro service does the work of monitoring information brokerages for you, alerting you whenever new findings appear. In addition, ReputationDefender Pro offers a simple, one-click interface for opting out of people-finder services, so you can protect your privacy without having to research each individual website’s procedures and requirements. We also offer ExecutivePrivacy, a premium privacy service that provides even more stringent protection for individuals with prominent positions. Unfortunately, the only way you can turn this off globally, is for photos you share with a link. Not many share in that fashion, so you're going to have to learn how to strip away that information on a photo-by-photo basis. Here's how. OK, now to the browser. For some people, changing browsers can be a big deal. I use Chrome for work (well, I used to. I am now in the process of moving to Firefox). Firefox seems a good alternative to Chrome. Mozilla has a pretty good privacy policy, which more or less states that your information will only be given to law enforcement, if requested. Other than that, your data isn’t going anywhere. In terms of remaining anonymous on the internet, I would recommend Cyber Ghost VPN. Whether you choose to become a paid member (P2P interaction and not being cut off every three hours) or free version (can't use P2P, cut off every three hours but can get right back on network) . Even for the free version, Cyber Ghost offers, in advanced settings, the ability to change browser language and server location, change information about your operating system, anti fingerprinting and content blocker, etc. I don't really get why people worry about their privacy so much. If you really don't want companies or organisations to know about you, move off the grid some place, and do away with all tech. Otherwise, you have to come to terms with the fact that with civilisation, technology, and convenience you pay a little privacy. The moment we began to group together and form civilisations, we gave away certain elements of our privacy, like our ability to do what we wanted without being seen. But, I guess I'm a bit cynical and am willing to give away my information out of laziness and lack of care. The trouble with the Internet is that people abuse it for their own ends. That needs to stop. And if enough people demanded their information and identity back, then these companies (and to a lesser extent, governments) will find it increasingly difficult to do what they are doing. Why make it easy for them? If they want our data, they have to fight us for it! Cutler April 15, 2015 at 11:17 pm I don't really get why people worry about their privacy so much. If you really don't want companies or organisations to know about you, move off the grid some place, and do away with all tech. Otherwise, you have to come to terms with the fact that with civilisation, technology, and convenience you pay a little privacy. The moment we began to group together and form civilisations, we gave away certain elements of our privacy, like our ability to do what we wanted without being seen. But, I guess I'm a bit cynical and am willing to give away my information out of laziness and lack of care. Reply Mark O'Neill April 16, 2015 at 10:49 am Cutler, that is a rather dangerous attitude to have. Do you really want the government or law enforcement to know every little thing that you do, without probable cause? What business is it of theirs who you socialize with, which books you read, what political views you have? It's your human right to have total privacy if you want it. The trouble with the Internet is that people abuse it for their own ends. That needs to stop. And if enough people demanded their information and identity back, then these companies (and to a lesser extent, governments) will find it increasingly difficult to do what they are doing. Why make it easy for them? If they want our data, they have to fight us for it! Reply Cutler, that is a rather dangerous attitude to have. Do you really want the government or law enforcement to know every little thing that you do, without probable cause? What business is it of theirs who you socialize with, which books you read, what political views you have? It's your human right to have total privacy if you want it. The trouble with the Internet is that people abuse it for their own ends. That needs to stop. And if enough people demanded their information and identity back, then these companies (and to a lesser extent, governments) will find it increasingly difficult to do what they are doing. Why make it easy for them? If they want our data, they have to fight us for it! Hi David! My instincts with regards to receiving a fake review from an employee who was fired, would first be to try and have the review removed immediately. The review violates the Conflict of Interest content policy. With regards to responding to the review, I would first ensure that it doesn’t violate any HR or Privacy policies given the individual was fired and a previous employee. This could be a situation that warrants no response, especially when coming from a disgruntled ex-employee with malicious intent. Sadly, I think a lot of competitors write fake reviews or hire someone else to, there are a lot illegitimate and spam reviews out there, having a solid review strategy in place really truly helps combat this. Hopefully this information helps you out. Good luck with the removal of that review! If someone is out to get you, they probably won’t respond to your requests to take down the content, so your next step is to try and contact the hosting company. I’ve had quite a few hosting companies take down content on my DCMA requests, mostly due to copyright violations. Your name probably won’t be cause enough for a DCMA request, but if the information that is posted about you is hateful or defaming or slanderous, you can pretty much guarantee that the site is violating the terms of service for that hosting company. The last step would then be to try to bury the bad results as far down in the search results as possible. Most people don’t look past the first page of results when performing searches, but if someone is trying to find information about you specifically, they may go several pages deep. You’ll basically have to create as many good results as you can and hope they show up higher. There are companies out there that collect your information. They're called data brokers and they have names like Spokeo, Whitepages.com, PeopleFinder, as well as plenty of others. They collect data from everything you do online and then sell that data to interested parties, mostly in order more specifically advertise to you and sell you more stuff.
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