Tag Archives: Kashmir Hill

Crisis Management, , , , , , , ,
Right to be Forgotten on Google

Many people are concerned with the volume of slanderous content about people on the internet…including websites that publish such material and then extort victims to pay to have it removed.

In 2021, Google announced plans to change its search algorithm to prevent predatory websites, which operated under domains like BadGirlReport.date and PredatorsAlert.us, from appearing in the list of results when someone searches for a person’s name.

In Google Seeks to Break Vicious Cycle of Online Slander, the article that broke this news, Kashmir Hill and Daisuke Wakabayashi, tech reporters for The New York Times, reported:

Google also recently created a new concept it calls “known victims.” When people report to the company that they have been attacked on sites that charge to remove posts, Google will automatically suppress similar content when their names are searched for. “Known victims” also includes people whose nude photos have been published online without their consent, allowing them to request suppression of explicit results for their names.

These are examples of personal information that Google will remove if you are unable to have a website remove it on request:

Non-consensual explicit or intimate personal images from Google

Involuntary fake pornography from Google

Content about you on sites with exploitative removal practices from Google

Select financial, medical, and national ID information from Google

“Doxxing” content – content exposing contact information with an intent to harm

Google may also remove personal information that creates significant risks of identity theft, financial fraud, or other specific harms.

If you believe your request meets one of the guidelines mentioned above, you can make a removal request at Google’s form, found here.

 
 
General, , , , , , , , ,
How to Avoid High-Risk Hires

The New York Times has published a disturbing article that shows how some online reputation damage happens: intentionally.

In A Vast Web of Vengeance, tech reporter Kashmir Hill details how one person spent years creating false, negative posts about more than a hundred people. They have suffered extreme reputation damage due to 1200 defamatory posts that are too unpleasant to print here. In her article, Hill describes “the power of a lone person to destroy countless reputations, aided by platforms like Google that rarely intervene.”

Yes: On the internet, anyone can be impersonated, harassed or the focus of “fake news.” It persists because of the Communications Decency Act Section 230, (CDA 230), a law that protects the platforms that publish such information — publishers like Google, Facebook, Twitter and millions of blogs, forums and websites — against liability for third-party content on their websites.

We have written extensively about the need to update that law.  That includes our interviews with leaders active in the movement to change it, notably:

Dan Shefet, a member of our Advisory Board, who established the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID), which has lobbied the European Commission to introduce rules to make it easier for others to remove harmful information online.

 Right2Remove, which advocates for “Right to Remove” privacy policy legislation “that allows for the removal of content from Internet platforms that is designed to cause reputational harm to consumers in the United States.”

For more insight on this topic, our blog post  No Right to be Forgotten Here is also relevant.  And be sure to check out, The Case for Bringing the Right to be Forgotten to America.

Here is to more investigative journalism focusing on this important topic, including changing the law that enables such harmful content to remain on the internet forever, or at all.

 
 
Internet Legal Issues, , , , , , , , , , ,
reputation management for lawyers

Despite frequent outcries about data breaches affecting millions of Internet users, U.S. citizens continue to have the lowest level of privacy protection in the world. Not surprisingly, the U.S. law governing online content is also outdated.

Our article,  Right2Remove: Bringing the “Right to be Forgotten” to America, highlights the work of an important organization focusing on changing that. The issues it faces are nothing new.

A 2011 ruling in a New York City court of appeals that would still stand today illustrates why the law needs to be updated to reflect current Internet use.

The court dismissed a businessman for filing a suit against a competitor for consistently posting “false and defamatory statements of fact” online that were clearly intended to injure the claimant’s reputation.

The judge noted that the comments about the claimant were “unquestionably offensive and obnoxious,” but held that the defendants were protected under the Communications Decency Act, which shields Web site operators from liability when they publish and edit material that they did not create.

In plain English: nothing could stop the poster from continuing to publish libel that, were it in print, would probably make him the subject of a successful lawsuit.

We Support the Right to Be Forgotten

Situations like the one above influence reputations in a way that is unfair (and in our view, should not be legal). That is why establishing and maintaining a strong online reputation is an asset for individuals and businesses alike. It is also why an update of internet laws is far overdue.

We support the Right to Be Forgotten on Google. Increasing numbers of other concerned Americans are raising their voices to demand that option come to America, too. Why Americans Need And Deserve The Right To Be Forgotten, by security expert and Inc. columnist Joseph Steinberg, presents a compelling reason why it should. With Dan Shefet’s help, it will.

Dan Shefet is a Paris-based attorney who forced Google to remove links to defamatory information about him in 2014. The case made worldwide headlines and led to the Right to be Forgotten law in Europe, which allows citizens to request Google remove links to certain types of personal information about them online. He has since established the Association for Accountability and Internet Democracy (AAID) Its goal is to to make search engines legally responsible for the information they publish. Dan’s goal is to establish a chapter of AAID in the U.S. You can learn more about his views in our interview with him: Dan Shefet: Creator of the Internet’s Ombudsman.

Related reading: An Attorney’s Advice for Removing Negative, Defamatory and Infringing Material from the Internet.