Removing information that could harm your brand image or your slander becomes a priority for many companies. You’ve typed your name into Google, Yahoo, Bing, or any other search engine and you see false or defamatory information and you don’t know what to do to remove it! Dynamic reminds you of the principles laid down by Cnil to enable you to change this situation.
What is search engine?
A search engine makes it possible to obtain a list of Internet pages that contain a keyword or an expression entered by its user. It responds to hundreds of millions of requests per day in an instant. In fact, it’s quite simply a robot that scans and “indexes” all the content found on the Internet. He is not the main contractor for the content of the pages he refers to. So content exists only on search engines as it exists elsewhere on a website, blog, etc. There is therefore a phenomenon of dependence between the appearance of content in search engines and elsewhere, even though they may retain information for a while after it disappears from the website.
What can be done to remove this harmful information?
For a search engine to remove a page containing information about you, you must first remove this information from the original site or act so that this information is no longer indexed by the engines. In both the processes, it is the person in charge of the original site who can accomplish this de-listing quickly. These phases remain independent of each other. However, CNIL is advised to favor the first, even though the two processes must be performed in parallel. Why ? Quite simply because the information remains accessible on the original site as a priority (they are accessible either from queries other than your name, or from other search engines that you haven’t requested).
Procedure: Contact the person in charge of the original site
You will find information about its identity in a legal notice or in the General Terms of Use of the Site. It is the person in charge of the Website, who places this information online and who may decide to take certain pages out of the context of their site or to remove the information.
While this approach may seem downright simplistic, in order to remove information about you from a web page, you must justify your request. The information will not be automatically generated as you wish and will often include explaining, for example, how posting this material harms your reputation or your privacy and is beyond the legal framework. To help you prepare your request, CNIL provides you with a model deletion letter to be sent to the Site Manager www.cnil.fr.
a time that would seem like an eternity
The Site Manager has a legal period of two months to respond to your request. In the event of no response or unsatisfactory response at the end of this two month period, you may send a complaint to CNIL by using the online complaint form (posted on the CNIL website) or by mail only. You must not forget to attach a copy of the letter you sent to the site manager with your complaint, as well as any feedback.
How long to make all the information disappear without exception?
After removal, traces may still remain in search engine results for some time. Indeed, the latter temporarily keep a copy of all the pages their crawlers visit. This is called “cache”. The period between two visits varies according to various criteria such as the popularity of the site, but also the frequency of site updates. Indexing robots visit pages every two to three weeks on average (some sites, such as News, may be updated daily). In this time span, the old version of the web page may still be visible from the search engine “cache”, even if the page was modified on the original site.
An Additional Chance on Google
Google provides webmasters of websites with a voluntary de-indexing process to request removal of links and the cache of deleted pages. The useful instructions for performing this Google deindexing operation are relatively easy http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=fr&answer=164734. Be careful as you will need a Gmail account to perform this operation.
If your information has been removed from the website and the information still appears on Google, you may undergo another voluntary de-indexing process (http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py hl=en & answer) can also be used. = 164734 to link and verify no follow)
Then you need to click on “Remove content from another person’s site”. On the next page, in the “Remove content that isn’t live” section, select “Ask us not to show obsolete content on the page.” Finally log in to your Gmail account. For the search engines Bing and Yahoo! Find, another process exists http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/?cc=fr.
to note
During its plenary session on 16 and 17 September 2014, the G29 adopted a “toolbox” for grievance handling, establishing a network of contact points within the authorities, which would specifically provide a common platform for processing complaints. Was responsible for developing the reserves. We are talking about the right of de-listing. If you would like more information, you can do so by inquiring about the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union