Remove negative search results: right to be forgotten, de-indexing and suppression

The best-known route: Google removes the link from the results for your name, after weighing your privacy against the public interest. We draft the request per URL, with the grounds and supporting evidence that tip that balance in your favour. How that balancing works, which criteria apply and what belongs in a request is set out in the guide to the right to be forgotten.

A stricter regime applies to the processing of criminal personal data. Reports about suspicions, arrests or criminal proceedings that end in a dismissal or acquittal are often unlawfully findable through search engines. We set out these grounds explicitly in right-to-be-forgotten requests and in any follow-up steps.

Old articles often come with images that are later reused without permission. A DMCA procedure (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) or a copyright demand letter is then the fastest way to get the image, and sometimes the entire article, taken offline.

When Google shows suggestions such as "fraud", "fired" or "scam" as your name is typed, that is harmful regardless of what the search results themselves show. Removal goes through Google's autocomplete reporting form, with legal follow-up where needed.

At the bottom of a results page, Google shows "related searches", which are often fed by the same signals as autocomplete. Removal follows the same process.

A separate search surface. Removal works partly through copyright (DMCA) and partly through the right to be forgotten for identifiable individuals.

The automatically generated questions and answers below search results can contain incorrect premises. Removal is harder; tackling the source (removing or correcting the underlying articles) is often more effective than removal directly from PAA.

Google's new AI summary feature shows answers generated by Gemini on search results pages. Incorrect or harmful output in AI Mode formally goes through the same Google procedure as other search results, with additional arguments where the output was specifically generated.

Years ago, a business professional was linked in two news reports to a suspicion of forgery. The Public Prosecution Service dropped the case; even so, the two reports about the suspicion kept ranking at #1 and #2 in a search for his name.

We submitted a right-to-be-forgotten request under Article 17 GDPR, supported by the decision to drop the case and the criminal nature of the data. Google initially rejected the request. Through Dutch DPA mediation, with additional legal arguments on why the rejection was wrong, it was ultimately decided to remove the results. Total lead time: 7 months.

Years ago, a Dutch SME was the subject of an extensive news article about an alleged culture of fear, based on anonymous sources and an internal investigation that had found the complaints unsubstantiated. A subsequent board of directors commissioned an independent investigation by a reputable firm, which contradicted the conclusions of the original article. The old article nevertheless kept ranking at #1 for the company name.

We worked on two tracks: a request to the publisher to update the article with a reference to the subsequent investigation (partly granted, in the form of an editorial update at the bottom of the piece) and a suppression campaign with several new background articles in which the current situation and the subsequent investigation featured prominently. Within 11 months, the old article moved from #1 to page 2 of Google.