I Googled myself and I have a question

I was involved in a Federal Civil Rights suit (I 'won') against my employer and the Teamsters Union.
It made the papers.

I have asked the group to please remove that webpage from their site because it appears on Google and I feel it may hinder my career oppurtunities.

I wonder if they will they do it?
Do they have to?
Do I have any rights in this considering it is "public" information, I guess?

A Civil action is public record.

...but that is what I thought.

by being on a newspaper website that is searched by the Google spider.

If you ask the newspaper to remove it, they might do it--they certainly don't have to--but then it'll be stuck in google cache for a long time.

When you ask if you have any rights--well, you lose the right to privacy by filing suit, because at that point it became public information.

I sympathize with you about it affecting your employment--I really don't know if there's any legal remedy, though.

...in the field of law.

Something just stinks about it.
We, as a society, accept 'statutes of limitations' yet modern technology negates that.
If this were just a few years ago an employer would never find this.
The invention of the "search engine", via the WWW, changes everything.

So I guess the answer is no, it won't be removed.

then you likely do not have any recourse in the legal system. Litigation is a matter of public record - as are the documents and transcripts of the court proceedings. And truth is a defense to any allegations of libel or slander. Having no legal recourse does not mean that you are without other options to address your concerns.

They won't remove it and even if they did, the (black) ball is dropped. I can't even begin to describe the crap I confronted in my career after blowing the whistle on stock fraud and then dealing with a wrongful termination. There are services you can obtain to check your references - they find out who's bad-mouthing you, using a list you provide.

And a very important topic I feel.

In the past, "public" in reality meant something different than it does now. Although information such as this was available, you really did have to go out of your way to find it, for example searching through court records or old newspapers in libraries. You really had to know what you were looking for in order to find such information, and the time and expense meant that it would only be used in serious cases.

But now, anyone with an internet connection can carry out a simple search on the internet and find out all sorts of information easily, quickly and cheaply in a matter of moments from the comfort of their own home.

To me, this means that "public" is actually a lot more invasive than it used to be.

Now I suspect you could petition a court to have your identity supressed in a case such as yours, but you would have to show that your right to privacy was superior to the public's "right to know".

Perhaps you could have the page delisted from google - but I would be willing to bet that Google would fight you tooth and nail just on principle. If you won, then anyone could demand their information be taken out of Google's database.

One aspect of Google that I find interesting and am surprised there has not yet been a case about it, is Google's allowing the cached page to be viewed. For example, if you change a web page of yours to remove some information, Google still has that reproduced, and often still available to the public. The interesting question is, are Google not infringing copyright in such situations by making available content that you have removed from public display? Is the cache not an illegal copy of such content? Can you contact Google and have them remove such cached content under copyright law, or is it "fair use"?


Its a very interesting subject that cuts to the heart of online privacy. Do we actually have control over any of our own information that might be available online?

The news articles no longer appear from the MSM.
The legal group that represented me has a webpage that does.

I don't know if that makes any difference?

If they're doing it as part of information adn advertising about their services, ask them to do it without your name.

If they won't, then you could threaten to publish a web site that uses their name and explains how dealing with them will cause people to be "black-balled" for the rest of their lives.

They may have meant it innocently, but they're hurting you.

If they remove it, it will take a while to percolate out of the top few Google pages.

Try putting your name in some places where Google will pick it up and rank it ahead of this article.

I will write them again to remove my name please.

However...will this stop Google from recognizing my name as it relates to this page? Google cache?

Email I just sent:

----

I just wrote you regarding my name posted on your site here:
http://www.####.com

If it is not possible to remove this page, is it possible to remove my name from this page?

Again, I wish to please have my name removed so I do not appear on a Google search.
My future career opportunities will be affected and I respectfully request my need for privacy be honored.

I realize it is 'public information' but the above page is the only record, of this case, currently showing on Google using my name as the keywords.

Thanks again