Hidden from Google - what we're not supposed to know.

[smilodon]

As some might remember a while back the good folk at the EU collectively went insane (again) and thought it would be a good idea to allow people to have certain links removed from Google's search results that referred to them in some way (usually negatively). Not from the Internet though, but just from Google's search results. Just Google, not Bing or Yahoo or Duck Duck Go. It is actually as moronic as it sounds. It's not that the actual web content is not available, or libelous or wrong. It's just that certain people want certain stuff not to be searchable by the rest of us. And somehow in someones mind that's a good thing? I guess none thought that almost immediately we'd see new 'Reputation Management' companies offering to clean up the mucky public lives of the rich and powerful who can afford their services. Go check Igniyte, Digitalis Reputation and others

Anyway there's a nice site that lists all the stuff that people don't want you or me to find on Google. The wonderful irony is that I found the site on a Google search.

http://hiddenfromgoogle.afaqtariq.com/

Maybe the EU should make Google stop linking to content that is about the EU stopping Google linking to content that the EU doesn't want Google to link to :blink: (it seems they do, see below)

Anyway here it is and it makes for some interesting reading. Funny how so many low life scum who do bad things don't want us to know about it.

There's the Italian Wikipedia page (but oddly not the English language one) for Renato Vallanzasca the Italian mobster and convicted murderer.

Another Italian wikipedia page for Banda della Comasina, a crime gang that amazingly was run by one Renato Vallanzasca.

The Wikipedia page for Irish armed robber Gerry Hutch.

A story Dr. Ronald Daniels-Dwyer who in 2006 was convicted of stealing £200 worth of Christmas toys from Boots

An entry in the publicly available Company Check website about Jannette Mock Donald, who is probably a very nice lady. But company directorships are publically declarable by law, so how hiding the fact from Google is a good thing eludes me?

Several stories about some infighting and mud slinging at the upper levels of the Law Society.

A Guardian story about Scottish referee Dougie McDonald lying to the Scottish Football Association. The list goes on.


But my absolute favourite is a that the Guardian newspapers story about the EU 'right to be forgotten' law, has itself been censored. Do they hope if we can't read about it then we'll forget that we have a right to be forgotten? Seems a little counterproductive.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/02/eu-right-to-be-forgotten-guardian-google


And of course if you would like to opt out of the EU's new censorship law simply redirect your searches and/or you Google start page to http://www.google.com/ncr which will take you to www.google.com where this lunacy doesn't happen. It seems just typing google.com will bouce you back to google.co.uk or whatever your EU location happens to be.

[Gorion]

You can actually make the ncr thing permanent by adding it to the search engine list in chrome:

First box: whatever you want to name it
Second box: http://www.google.com/ncr
Third box: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s

No more redirection by default, or those annoying location based stuff.