how can I get true, but unflattering links posted on the internet
about myself removed?  the webmaster is uncooperative, and this
information is more than 45 days old.  my actions did not involve a
crime, or result in any criminal/civil litigation.  I just want my
privacy back, and it has caused a great deal of discord in my personal
life amongst family.

---

Request for Question Clarification by j_philipp-ga on 16 Jun 2002 15:00 PDT

Marcus,

do you have content online you don't wish strangers to see? In that
case, you might think about password-protecting it.
Or are you concerned about what the other person wrote about you?
Thanks.

Dear Marcus,

I really hate being the bearer of bad tidings, but if someone has put
something on their own web page about you that is not a lie, there is
very little you can do about it.

You can ask that it be taken down, but it sounds like the webmaster
has no intentions of doing so.  You might be able to persuade his
webhost to ask him to remove the links, but most webhosts don't
interfere unless the content of a site is illegal or violates their
TOS.  You could possibly sue, but again, if the information posted
isn't defamatory, it likely wouldn't go your way.

All you can really do is ignore it, hard as that might be.  A friend
of mine was similarly tormented a couple years ago, and he ended up
just telling people "I refuse to discuss it."  It took a while, but
his tormentor got bored and eventually took the pages down.

Good luck Marcus.  I'm sorry people can be so awful sometimes.

.
If it's information about you on the other person's site, I sure hope
you're not the guy growing plants in the blue kiddie pools in the
backyard, because the link to that site is making the rounds via email
and it's going like wildfire.  According to the counter, it's had 3.25
million hits since the first week in April.  The upside is that it'll
probably cost him a mint in bandwidth charges to keep it up, and that
might make him take it down...

About your case, though... Try to see if the webmaster will tell you
why the info was put up on the web - maybe it's to get back at you for
something, and perhaps you could negotiate with him.

If you did or are doing something that the person found objectionable,
maybe you could arrive at a mutually agreeable compromise in exchange
for the information being deleted?

Good luck!

TexasT

Marcus,

I can't tell from your description if the site is a heavily trafficed
public site, one of an organization you belong(ed) to, a school,
etc... However, if it's a question of people putting your name in an
Internet search engine like Google and finding this material you don't
like, you can certainly design a simple site of your own that will
outdraw his site (appear higher in seach engine rankings) when your
name is searched on.

morris

Hi Marcus,

As much as it pains me, I am going to have to disagree with Missy on
this one. While truth is a defense to a libel claim, Truth is not a
defense to an invasion of privacy claim. "Publication of truthful
information concerning the private life of a person that would be both
highly offensive to a reasonable person and not of legitimate public
concern is an invasion of privacy. Liability is often determined by
how the information was obtained and its newsworthiness." from:
http://www.rcfp.org/handbook/viewpage.cgi?0203

AOL also has an excellent primer on legal issues that arrise from
making a Web page: http://legal.web.aol.com/aol/aolpol/webtips.html

Finally, here is the California Civil Code on Invasion of Privacy, it
seems to mainly deal with photography, I am not sure if for the
perpose of that law, a narrative would be "visual image, sound
recording, or other physical impression." But the law is very specific
on what constitutes invasion of privacy:
http://www.gcwf.com/articles/privacy/10215513.html

Google search terms: publication of private facts

Just 2c worth of my opinion here...

The best way to do this is to make some type of a deal with the
person on the other side that leaves both of you satisfied.

I don't know anything about you or the site you're referring to.
I'm guessing that not too many people probably know about it
outside of a small circle of insiders. If you'd like to keep it
that way, then either make a deal with the site owner or keep
your mouth shut about it.

Why, you may ask?

Well, if you make a big enough stink about the issue and your
adversary is a savvy kind of guy, then it won't take that much
work to get anti-net-censorship people involved. These are the
kind of folks who can make your life even *more* miserable by
finding web sites overseas outside US jurisdiction who will be
more than happy to copy the current site word-for-word. They can
also send copies of your adversary's statements over their mailing
lists or even send them to journalists who like to write about
this kind of thing.

If that happens, you'll be really screwed in trying to get the
information removed, unless you're crazy enough to sue a newspaper
over things they might say about you. Trust me when I say that
very few people win these kinds of cases.

Want some proof? Take a peek at http://www.politechbot.com . This
is a mailing list run by Declan McCullagh, a journalist well known
for taking up these kinds of causes.

Here's some examples of stuff like this from his archives. Read
these carefully before you try to do anything that could get you
in even more trouble:

[somebody tries to shut down police info site in Oregon]
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03651.html

[criticism of car dealer]
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03644.html

[fbi tries to shut down Daniel Pearl video]
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03587.html

[cyberpatrol tries to shut down decoding utility]
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01015.html

Finally, here's an example of what can happen when somebody
tries to threaten/censor a journalist who covers stories
like this:

[Fleishman-Hillard advertising firm threatens PoliTech mailing list]
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03372.html


In conclusion: Trying to get statements you don't like pulled from
the internet can potentially be the most counter-productive thing
you could do to advance your cause.

/ephraim

My 2 cents:  Try the friendly approach, and the less and less friendly
approaches.

First send a friendly reminder of what you'd like done.  Don't forget
updating webpages takes work, so offering have the page removed for a
fee might help.

Keep sending friendly reminders every week for a while until you are
sure they aren't going to comply.

Send an email to their ISP explaining the situation, asking them to
request the web master to take down the page.

If still no results, consider legal action. The threat of legal action
is much more powerful than actual legal action.  So hiring a lawyer to
send the webmaster and ISP a semi-threating letter is likely to
succeed.  Even if you don't have a winnable case they will remove the
page unless they feel really strongly about it.

A possible technical solution is to write a program that continously
crawls their web site.  The ISP might close their account for
excessive traffic, especially on free web hosters.  This is pretty
close to a DOS (denial of service attack), although you aren't trying
to deny service directly, just indirectly.  Potentially this could be
illegal so you should check up first.  Use this only as a last option
if it's really important the material be removed.

It would help us a lot more to know what you'd be dealing with, and
the only way we can do that is see how the webmaster deals with
things.  We'd know by what kinds of storys he puts up and stuff. 
Please tell us the Link to the website.  Also, If you want, you can
put in a link to your story exactly... If what you did was not
illegal, we cannot make fun of it or such.

Also, If it's on somethingawful.com/rotten.com/stileproject.com, it's
not coming down.

I think the key to this issue is that the facts are true.  As such,
you have no legal recourse to threaten the hosting company with, nor
indeed the site owner.

Unless you can find anything that is blatantly untrue, you will have
to rely on either negotiating your way out of it with the webmaster,
or just getting on with life and ignoring it.

If the webmaster will not listen to you, try finding a close member of
family who has been upset by what he has posted and see if he will
listen to reason from them - if his grudge is against you only, he may
respond to the genuine distress of a third party he did not intend to
hurt.

Just a thought,

m

In the UK, something doesn't have to be a lie to be defamatory.
Perhaps it's different in the US.  Hmm.

The first link in Google Glossary defines defamation as "an injury
to a person's character or reputation such that a right thinking
person would think less of the injured person as a result of the
injurious act." http://www.mylawyer.com/glossary.htm

Searching for 'defamatory material rights' on Google finds many
Terms and Conditions pages on web sites saying that people aren't
allowed to post defamatory material.  This hints that a) something
happens to those that do and b) the material is removed.  Perhaps
the web site owner has published similar Terms and Conditions or
issues users an Acceptable Use Policy.

In 1999, there was a test case in the UK about defamation.  The
result was the judgement that an ISP is effectively the publisher
of the posted content and should be held liable for it.

Some links:
http://www.cyber-rights.org/reports/demon.htm (case analysis)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_304000/304869.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_364000/364261.stm
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18764,00.html

The actual judgement is at:
http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j267/godfrey3.htm

Anyway, my experience of dealing with online copyright infringement
was to pay for a lawyer to send a letter to each of the infringers.
This cost me 30 quid (~$45) a letter six years ago and was very
successful.  Perhaps such a formal approach may work in this
situation.


Paola