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Date:      Fri, 04 Feb 2005 17:25:35 -0500
From:      Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
To:        Chris Hodgins <chodgins@cis.strath.ac.uk>
Cc:        vandrewlevich@momsandkids.org
Subject:   Re: favor
Message-ID:  <4203F65F.4080600@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <4203EFE8.6060900@cis.strath.ac.uk>
References:  <200502042006.j14K6Ni1031241@mail5.atl.registeredsite.com> <4203DEE9.6080302@mac.com> <4203EFE8.6060900@cis.strath.ac.uk>

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Chris Hodgins wrote:
> Chuck Swiger wrote:
[ ... ]
> Google does offer a way to remove posts that you have made from its index:
> 
> http://www.google.co.uk/googlegroups/help.html#9

Notice the part which says:

"Messages posted by other people

       By its very nature, Usenet consists of information posted by many 
people. Google does not monitor or control the content of this information. 
Instead, we simply provide access to the public forum in which people post 
their comments.

     Accordingly, if you are concerned about a message that someone has 
posted, you need to resolve that problem directly with the person who posted 
it. Except in extreme circumstances, Google will not act upon an individual's 
request to remove another person's messages.  We firmly believe it is not 
Google's role to resolve disputes among the users who have posted millions of 
messages on Usenet, nor would it be possible to fulfill that role if we chose 
to undertake it."

> IANAL but I think it would be interesting to know what the legal 
> implications are here.  Could it be a legal requirement that you can 
> request that your data is removed?

The situation is analogous to writing a letter to a newspaper, having it 
printed in the op/ed section, and then you asking your local library to 
discard the entire editoral section for that day.

Even if the library were to agree, there were thousands of other copies made 
and the neighboring towns very probably have copies of that day's paper in 
their library archives, as well, so what's the point?  A newspaper doesn't 
have any legal obligation to hunt down and remove all of the copies of their 
paper which contain the letter you wrote.

Likewise, if you don't want your name to appear in the archive of a public 
forum, don't send content to a public forum.

-- 
-Chuck



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