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It would be interesting to see if the law leaves loopholes where businesses can use this as a competitive advantage. For example, what if I can request a page

It would be interesting to see if the law leaves loopholes where businesses can use this as a competitive advantage. For example, what if I can request a page be removed from search results if my name appears in a comment on a page that promotes my competitor's business / products / services.

bduerst 12y ago
It's just keyword linking, not complete URL removal from search. You can ask that your name keyword in search doesn't go to the page with your competitor's company, but keywords for your competitor and/or for your product/service will still route there. It's still whack-a-mole. Users looking for reviews will start searching within review sites as opposed to google searching. The worst impact here is that politicians could remove links between their names and articles that are rightfully criticizing them.
- datashovel 12y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I'm still not totally convinced some clever folks out there won't find ways to reduce search results for websites promoting competitors. Google will have every reason to suspect they're doing "the right thing" on some of these requests, but it's hard to imagine there won't be some ulterior motive, or even just unintended consequences, behind some of these requests that would not be obvious to the naked eye. It's almost as if: not only do people who want keywords removed need to keep an eye out, but people who don't want their pages removed from search results will need to monitor this as well. It will be interesting to see what kinds of disputes occur as a result of this. An interesting social experiment if nothing else.
  - Kalium 12y ago
    Some people have already used this to hide negative reviews of themselves.
- YokoZar 12y ago
  I suppose it's only a matter of time until a company finds a person with an obscure real name (say, "Kentucky"), asks them to comment on a negative article about the company (say, a CNN article critical of the chicken industry), and then has them ask to be forgotten, forever hiding the bad result from searches for "kentucky fried chicken problems"

bduerst 12y ago

It's just keyword linking, not complete URL removal from search. You can ask that your name keyword in search doesn't go to the page with your competitor's company, but keywords for your competitor and/or for your product/service will still route there. It's still whack-a-mole. Users looking for reviews will start searching within review sites as opposed to google searching. The worst impact here is that politicians could remove links between their names and articles that are rightfully criticizing them.

datashovel 12y ago
Thanks for the clarification. I'm still not totally convinced some clever folks out there won't find ways to reduce search results for websites promoting competitors. Google will have every reason to suspect they're doing "the right thing" on some of these requests, but it's hard to imagine there won't be some ulterior motive, or even just unintended consequences, behind some of these requests that would not be obvious to the naked eye. It's almost as if: not only do people who want keywords removed need to keep an eye out, but people who don't want their pages removed from search results will need to monitor this as well. It will be interesting to see what kinds of disputes occur as a result of this. An interesting social experiment if nothing else.
- Kalium 12y ago
  Some people have already used this to hide negative reviews of themselves.
YokoZar 12y ago
I suppose it's only a matter of time until a company finds a person with an obscure real name (say, "Kentucky"), asks them to comment on a negative article about the company (say, a CNN article critical of the chicken industry), and then has them ask to be forgotten, forever hiding the bad result from searches for "kentucky fried chicken problems"