One must naturally furnish a current e-mail address to post to any
Google Newsgroup. These are then all archived by article and
cross-archived wherever one's name (e-mail) appears in a response.
These postings and responses can then be easily accessed through the
Advanced Search feature of Googles by author (e-mail address). Past
postings are often used by Newsgroup bullies, who dominate certain
controversial Newsgroups, solely to intimidate, ridicule and distort.
After posting for a few months, absolutely nobody can withstand this
kind of selective and malicious scrutiny. 

Is there a way to prevent these searches on authors (e-mail
addresses)if the poster so desires? After all, it was presumably done
for the benefit of the author. If not, why not? This is a highly
intimidating aspect of the way Google has set this system up and is
standard operating procedure with many thuggies in these Newsgroups.
If this cannot be done absent superhuman computer skills, then a
non-answer will serve as notification of such. My posting days will be
over, too. Thanks a lot.

Hi there!

Google's search features are in place for the benefit of everyone who
uses the Usenet Archive, readers and posters alike.  Usenet has a long
history of being a repository for useful information, for everything
from scientific discussion, to Internet history, to the evolution of
popular culture.  Disabling the search feature would eliminate the
purpose of the archive entirely, and render it basically useless.

Even if you *could* disable Google's search function, that wouldn't
help for *other* Usenet archives (and there are a few) - people could
still dig up your old posts from elsewhere if they really wanted to.

The short answer is "No, you cannot disable Google's search feature so
no one can find you by e-mail address."

BUT!

And there's always a but...

You *can* ensure that your posts are not included at all in the
searchable database, both by "nuking" any posts you've already made
right out of existence, and by invoking a special header that prevents
your posts from being kept in the archive.

"Google will honor requests to remove messages that you have posted
yourself (known as nuking a post). You may even be able to do this
yourself using our Automatic Removal Tool. Please find the
circumstance below that applies to you and follow the instructions
there.

* Messages posted from your current e-mail address

If the email address you used to post your message(s) is still active,
we recommend you use our Automatic Removal Tool. This is the fastest
and easiest way to have your posts removed. Note- that in order to use
this option, you must be able to send and receive email using the same
account from which your messages were originally posted to Usenet.
    
* Messages posted with an e-mail address that is no longer valid

If you would like to request the removal of posts made by you, but the
email address from which you posted is no longer valid, you may send
an e-mail to groups-support@google.com that contains the following
items:

o your full name and contact information, including an email address
that can be verified;
o the complete Google Groups URL (or message ID) for each individual
message you would like to have suppressed;
o a statement that says "I swear under penalty of civil or criminal
laws that I am the person who posted each of the foregoing messages or
am authorized to request removal by the person who posted those
messages."; and
o your signature (electronic).

To prevent articles from being added to the Google Groups index in the
future, add 'X-No-Archive: yes' in the header of the article when you
post. If your news posting software does not allow you to edit
headers, type 'X-No-Archive: yes' as the first line of your post."

How can I remove articles from Google's archive?
://www.google.com/googlegroups/help.html#9

The Automatic Removal Tool is here:

Remove your URL or Google Groups Post
http://services.google.com:8882/urlconsole/controller

To prevent your posts from being archived (and thus prevent them from
being searchable), you need to use the "X-No-Archive: yes" header:

"Google supports the 'X-No-archive: yes' header, and we will not
archive any articles that contain this text either in the header or in
the first line of the message body."

I do not want you to archive my article(s)! How can I prevent messages
that I post from being archived on Google Groups?
://www.google.com/googlegroups/help.html#prevent

Of course, if you're using Google Groups to post to Usenet, this has
the drawback of you not being able to read your own post from Google's
servers.  Additionally, if you are posting through Google Groups,
'X-No-archive: yes' in the first line of your post will be honored by
the Google Groups servers, but it might not be honored by other
servers.

To combat this, consider posting to Usenet via the traditional
newsreader/server method.  There are two very good, free options for
this:

News Server
-----------

CIS/DFN at the University of Berlin
http://www.news.fu-berlin.de/

News Reader
-----------

Gravity
http://gravity.tbates.org


To set your 'X-No-archive: yes' header in Gravity after you've
installed it and set up your server options, select View, then Global
Options, then the Posting tab.  In the Custom Headers field type
"X-No-archive: yes", without the quotes.  Click OK, and you're done. 
Your posts will no longer be kept in the Google Archive (or any other
archive that honors the X-No-archive convention), but you'll still be
able to refer back to what you've written in your Outbox.

For more information about Usenet in general, there are two very
thorough and interesting tutorials:

How Newsgroups Work 
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/newsgroup.htm 
 
How Articles Travel Through Usenet 
http://tgos.org/newbie/general3.html 

Hope this helps!

--Missy

Search terms:  None.  Veteran Usenet Junkie with loads of bookmarks.