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Ask HN: Fraudulent use of the Right to be Forgotten?

Hi HN, A friend of mine is a semi-successful researcher with a semi-common German name. Over the past few months, citations of his work have dwindled and this seems to coincide with a large reduction in visitors to his website from Google Search. Initially he assumed that this was due to a misconfiguration and asked me to check things over, ensure his server hadn't been compromised, and so on. This was a dead end - everything seems to be in order and the Google Search Console reports no issues. However, I have noticed that when I search his for name or phrases from his site, Google informs me that "some results may have been removed due to data protection law in Europe". Links to his website do still show up sometimes, but only if very specific search terms are used. My theory is that one of the people who share his name (which includes another researcher and an author) has filed a fraudulent Right to Be Forgotten request in order to bump themselves up the search results, but neither of us have any way of proving this or even finding out what that notification actually refers to. He is understandably upset by this, and I'd like to help him so I'm asking HN: Short of changing his name, is there anything he can do?

CelticBard 5y ago
Sorry if I've misunderstood but wouldn't the right to be forgotten also affect the person who filed it? Also, depending on the area of research of your friend, perhaps interst in his research has temporarily waned?
- ToBeRemembered 5y ago
  The Right to be Forgotten can be (and I'd guess usually is) used selectively - you can ask Google to forget about the Twitter account you made when you were 13, while keeping everything else available. Even if interest has waned, it's unclear to me why that would result in his website vanishing and not, for example, his profile on his employer's website (which is still one of the top results). It certainly doesn't explain why this would coincide with warnings about data protection in Europe. It seems like there's no way of finding out if those warnings are actually related, never mind contesting a takedown.
sigmaprimus 5y ago
Could it be as simple as competitors advertising? Morality of paid promotions of academic research aside, it would seem to me that the "Algorithms" would favor promoted materials due to a greater "distinct visitors" count and resultant shares. Also without knowing the specifics the statement "Check things over, ensure his server..." stands out a bit. I may be way off on this but suspect this indicates a private physical server possibly located at the researchers office/home? Again, I may be totally wrong but expect the web crawlers favor faster and less latent remote hosted servers over private ones. Especially if there is intermittent and or varying bandwidth on these systems, and issues with security certificates. I also believe that more dynamic content by including feeds related to the subject matter would greatly improve site and search rankings as well as encourage return visits. These things could be dismissed or confirmed quite easily and a fairly low cost. If it seems dishonest to pay for promoting their research. Could they justify it by considering the advertising campaign as research in itself? I am certain there are far more knowledgeable SEO experts who peruse HN and I could be completely incorrect but still feel looking into these things would be a much better use of time and effort rather than chasing phantoms who may or may not be attacking them.
- ToBeRemembered 5y ago
  This is more or less the most useless reply possible. No, it is not competitors advertising. Ads on Google Search are clearly indicated and there are none for the search terms tested. No, the server is not under his desk (???). The server is a standard dedicated server hosted with a well-known provider. I checked it in terms of configuration (DNS, HTTPS), not with a voltmeter or whatever you have in mind. No, dynamic content and SEO are not going to help when the site does not show up at all. Those are tools for improving ranking, not getting the site to show up whatsoever. Let me put the question more simply: Assuming fraudulent RtbF requests are possible, how can they be identified and challenged?
  - sigmaprimus 5y ago
    Well I guess You know best, good luck. Happy New years. Maybe this will help You in your efforts https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/7347822?hl=en&ref_topic=7295796#zippy=%2Care-you-letting-website-owners-know-when-content-is-delisted https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/7347822... I hope this is less useless, next time try to be less "Awesome" and "Fantastic" or "Awtastik" when addressing people who are just trying to help.

CelticBard 5y ago

Sorry if I've misunderstood but wouldn't the right to be forgotten also affect the person who filed it? Also, depending on the area of research of your friend, perhaps interst in his research has temporarily waned?

ToBeRemembered 5y ago
The Right to be Forgotten can be (and I'd guess usually is) used selectively - you can ask Google to forget about the Twitter account you made when you were 13, while keeping everything else available. Even if interest has waned, it's unclear to me why that would result in his website vanishing and not, for example, his profile on his employer's website (which is still one of the top results). It certainly doesn't explain why this would coincide with warnings about data protection in Europe. It seems like there's no way of finding out if those warnings are actually related, never mind contesting a takedown.

sigmaprimus 5y ago

Could it be as simple as competitors advertising? Morality of paid promotions of academic research aside, it would seem to me that the "Algorithms" would favor promoted materials due to a greater "distinct visitors" count and resultant shares. Also without knowing the specifics the statement "Check things over, ensure his server..." stands out a bit. I may be way off on this but suspect this indicates a private physical server possibly located at the researchers office/home? Again, I may be totally wrong but expect the web crawlers favor faster and less latent remote hosted servers over private ones. Especially if there is intermittent and or varying bandwidth on these systems, and issues with security certificates. I also believe that more dynamic content by including feeds related to the subject matter would greatly improve site and search rankings as well as encourage return visits. These things could be dismissed or confirmed quite easily and a fairly low cost. If it seems dishonest to pay for promoting their research. Could they justify it by considering the advertising campaign as research in itself? I am certain there are far more knowledgeable SEO experts who peruse HN and I could be completely incorrect but still feel looking into these things would be a much better use of time and effort rather than chasing phantoms who may or may not be attacking them.

ToBeRemembered 5y ago
This is more or less the most useless reply possible. No, it is not competitors advertising. Ads on Google Search are clearly indicated and there are none for the search terms tested. No, the server is not under his desk (???). The server is a standard dedicated server hosted with a well-known provider. I checked it in terms of configuration (DNS, HTTPS), not with a voltmeter or whatever you have in mind. No, dynamic content and SEO are not going to help when the site does not show up at all. Those are tools for improving ranking, not getting the site to show up whatsoever. Let me put the question more simply: Assuming fraudulent RtbF requests are possible, how can they be identified and challenged?
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  Well I guess You know best, good luck. Happy New years. Maybe this will help You in your efforts https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/7347822?hl=en&ref_topic=7295796#zippy=%2Care-you-letting-website-owners-know-when-content-is-delisted https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/7347822... I hope this is less useless, next time try to be less "Awesome" and "Fantastic" or "Awtastik" when addressing people who are just trying to help.