Is it possible to remove defamatory web pages from Google?

Interesting data was recently released by Google concerning the removal of offending web content from the products it owns.

The data is focused on government requests to Google to remove content. It is not clear if the information that Google has published includes court orders in civil matters, where the court, in effect, acts as a government agency.

In our younger days, some of us did things we later came to regret. We wronged people or made them upset. Guilty as charged. We can't turn back the wheels of time, however and usually we mature and move on to better and greater things.

But what if, out of the blue, an indiscretion from 10, 20, or 30 years ago suddenly resurfaces, wreaking havoc on our family life, our business, our achievements, our good name? It resurfaces because someone causes it to, in order to destroy everything we have worked for.

More good news for our clients who have been awaiting a decision by the High Court in relation to a right to be forgotten claim against Google. The latest right to be forgotten claim against Google was in relation to a criminal conviction which Google refused to remove references to from its search results.

 The outcome of this latest right to be forgotten case would help remove a great deal of uncertainly from right to be forgotten applications in relation to past criminal convictions. We have advised clients who we previously marked their right to be forgotten cases as borderline or 50% to get back in touch with us as soon as possible.

Following this latest forgotten judgment, we have written to clients whose cases are likely to be affected by the decision. We estimate that the latest right to be forgotten judgment will result in an increase of

Right to be forgotten. Does Google delist search results from Google searches worldwide or only from European Google searches?

The purpose of this article is to update our clients on the latest position in relation to successful Right to be Forgotten applications and the current position regarding the removal of  search results from Google worldwide.

Following the Google Spain decision in 2014, Google started to remove offending links under a Right to be Forgotten from the Google searches but only from the applicant’s own country. So a successful Right to be Forgotten application made by a UK citizen would have resulted only in the removal of links to offending pages from Google.co.uk. This was highly unsatisfactory so law firms, including Cohen Davis Solicitors, had made repeated complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office until early in 2015 Google undertook to have offending

On 12 October 2014, Google reported to have rejected more than two thirds of all the ‘right to be forgotten’ applications they received from UK applicants. By contrast, Cohen Davis has obtained nearly 92% success rate with its right to be forgotten applications to Google and the ICO.

Google’s decision to comply with any such applications is of course at their discretion (albeit in accordance with the landmark court ruling made in Google Spain SL & Google Inc v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) & Costeja González (“Google Spain”) in May 2014) and there are currently no hard and fast rules which might serve to predict an applicant’s chances of success. Indeed, when comparing some successful applications against those which Google rejected, it becomes quite apparent that (at least on the face of it) even Google does not appear to maintain a consistent approach in how it deals with

An important ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU might mean that you and your children could ‎have a right to have information deleted from the internet.

The ruling came after Mario Costeja Gonzalez, a Spanish man, complained that a search of ‎his name in Google brought up newspaper articles from 16 years ago about a sale of property ‎to recover money he owed.

If you already made an application to Google under the right to be forgotten and your application was declined, you have a right to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the regulator responsible for data protection in the United Kingdom, which has the power to overturn Google’s decisions.

"For most people the application to the ICO under the right to be forgotten is likely to be the very last opportunity ever to have information removed from Google searches and from the internet."

If your right to be forgotten application was refused by Google, don’t be disheartened. You now have at least two options to choose from before moving forward.

The first one is to make an application to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to appeal Google’s decision to refuse your right to be forgotten application, and the second is to issue Google with a s10 letter under the Data Protection Act (DPA), which in turn will trigger a legal process which could very possibly end up in court.

Reporting a Concern to the ICO against Google refusal to comply with a right to be forgotten request

To appeal Google refusal to the ICO, you will need to file what the ICO calls a “concern”. You should however treat the report of a concern to the ICO against Google's right to be forgotten refusal as an appeal and we

Adverse results from search engines can often have severe consequences, sometimes affecting you as an individual, sometimes affecting your family and at other times affecting your business. This will seem particularly unfair where the information presented by the search engine against your name or the name of your business is untrue, deceptive or very old.

Our client was employed as a manager by a company in the financial services industry. An article in a national newspaper (also published online) revealed some of the practices employed by that company and effectively had made our client a scapegoat to the company’s alleged wrongdoing.

When news broke out about the company’s alleged practices, it allowed our client to become a scapegoat and did nothing to try and defend its practices or our client’s position as an employee

You deserve to have a real social media lawyer, an expert who is highly qualified but who is also highly experienced, internet and SEO savvy and who is commercially aware.

If you feel that your matter requires a solicitor who specialises in internet defamation and who can offer you far more than a limited legal view of your situation, and who can guide you through all the various options which are available to you, then you should seriously consider getting in touch with us.

There is a very good chance that we have already solved similar issues to yours which means we will be able to take you directly to where you want to be and along the way save you a great deal of time and money.

Our internet lawyers have a proven track record of success in facilitating the removal of hundreds of defamatory web

How SEO is used to spread defamation

Everyone has a soft spot. Being called a certain bad name in public could cause you a lot of damage and harm your career.

For example, a doctor might be described as "negligent", a solicitor as "incompetent", a builder as a "cowboy", or a teacher as "stupid". Such labels would be regarded by any of these people as a personal attack on their reputation and integrity.

But perhaps the most harmful insult of all was suffered by a top civil servant who was a social worker for the Children’s Service at a district council in the north of the country.