I do not want to be found on Google maps

There is a new EU law proposal concerning information we chose to share - social networks for example. The day we decide to quit it should be easy to be erased - at all sources. It is called "The right to be forgotten - On Internet". I have however expanded that title to a lot of other Internet integrity problems. The following is about involuntarily presences on Internet.

I do not want to be found on Google maps. I do not want my kids name and home address to be found on Internet. I do want all these data to be deleted. But I cannot!

At two separate occasions I have been reminded how vulnerable we are on Internet. On two separate occasions I have tried to get rid of mine and my families information on Internet. I am not talking about information we have chosen to share - I talk about personal information every Swedish citizen find about themselves on Internet without any kind of consent.

Intenet abuses and the problems to be forgotten when wanted

"A brash website allowing users to rate Swedish teenage girls as "ugly" or "hot" based on the unauthorised use of pictures from their Facebook accounts has been reported to the police".

Source The Local, Site 'stole' pics to rank Swedish teen girls

The website is brought down now and since it was a dynamic page no content was saved in Google's Caches. Otherwise the abuse would have gone on until next indexing. Something that may take up to six months.

The owner of a website can remove content from the search engine indexes. But as victim to net abuse it is often very hard to get in touch with right person to achieve this. At big websites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Wordpress and Google it is mostly impossible to find a helpdesk. And the support people must know how to do it. Twitter for example directs their users to the instruction below. Which no one except for Twitter self can follow since you need to own the website.

Anyhow - here is the instruction how to remove a Google search index and cached content. If you cannot make it by your own (meaning you do not own the website) try to get in touch with the support people and send them this link.

Google's instructions in how to remove from Googles cashes

I wonder if this aspect - the cached content is included in the new law proposal from EU:
Pressrelease: European Commission sets out strategy to strengthen EU data protection rules

As a victim for net abuse - you have the right to be forgotten on Internet. Instantly!

Would you like to reconnect with your dead spouse?

The men above are both living and  having a fun time.
One with and the other without Facebook

My father and mother 82 years old worried about my fathers Facebook account. I got his password and deactivated it. After about six month he appeard in reconnect suggestions box. I couldn´t investigate at that time but he disappeared again so I did not worry. A few months later he was there once again with the question if I wanted to reconnect with him. Instead of his profile picture there was that Facebook dummy picture. So Facebook knew his account was deactivated.

I did a few searches and found an instruction how to avoid this “bug”. You have to reactivate the account and send a mail to a specific address. And so I did. Then I deactivated the account again.

What if he would have been dead?
What if my mother had seen him in the reconnect box?
What if she hadn´t had his password to the private mail and being unable to follow that instruction?

If someone dies and you do a special “death report” - it takes six months before an account finally is shut down. She would have seen a ghost for six month.

Would you like to reconnect to your dead husband?

You must have the right to disappear from the net. And it must be simple!

Pressrelease: European Commission sets out strategy to strengthen EU data protection rules>

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It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it

The right to be forgotten on Internet

Source IDG.se

5 October 2010

EU is preparing a law that will enable users to erase information stored on them on the Internet.

The new law will allow European citizens to delete all information held about them on various sites, such as social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Today, it is not always clear all information stored on different sites because of technical limitations. EU wants to put pressure on sites that users can choose whether the information is saved or deleted, reports the BBC.

Pressrelease: European Commission sets out strategy to strengthen EU data protection rules>




I think this a great proposal but they seems to have forgotten the fact that much of the data at for example Twitter is copied to third party. It is not only about deleting the user profile and the content at the main source. Can Twitter force third party to delete that information? Can Twitter and Facebook force Google to delete cached information quicker than the now esteemed time of six months?

Read my reflections about Twitter, third party, Google and integrity at:

Did you know your tweets might be audited and cut out of stone?>

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It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it

Did you know your tweets might be audited and cut out of stone?

Make a search on your Twitter user name. You might find some new, some old  and some badly spelt tweets you deleted immediately. Some might even be tweets you rather forget about - forever. Things you never would like a future employer to read. But they are there….almost as impossible to wipe out.

A few days ago I wanted to check up how to remove tweets from Google's index. Sadly the instruction I found at Twitter was not working. You need to own the website to manage to follow that instruction. And since I obviously do not own Twitter the text was useless. And I wondered mockingly how many people can use that instruction? How many of us owns Twitter?

Then I tried to report the failing text at Twitter support. The only way to do so was to do an abuse/privacy report. It felt like over kill but frustrated I did. But first I read Twitters privacy statement.

Twitter says in the page you once signed when you entered this world “what’s yours is yours – you own your content”. Indeed – but you seems to have no control over your content. I wonder how many people have understood this? Read more an you will understand why...


We are not paid to delete tweets!

Earlier this spring I found out all my tweets were cloned by Twitter partners like topsy.com. I also found out they did not delete the content when I deleted something at Twitter.

In April I locked my Twitter profile for a while – I needed some privacy. But all these third parties did not hide my old tweets. I had to be in touch with every third-party – if possible – to make them delete their content. I decided it was not worth that effort. I have never written anything I feel ashamed of. I was only looking over my integrity. At one time I had a nice chat with the staff at topsy.com. They told me frankly and honestly “we are not paid to delete tweets”. But they provided a synch feature.

At the same time I found a very long distant contact’s Twitter profile at another Twitter partner. In Google's search index there was frozen image of one of his friends friendslist. That friend was one of my colleagues. My name and some more colleagues were there in the list together with 80 more persons.  In Sweden you actually need permission from the The Swedish Data Inspection Board to make a register like that one. But at some parts of Internet - it is for "free".

What if my friend had decided to lock his profile of integrity reasons? How would he have felt if he found this list where all his contacts were exposed to the whole world?  

Back to yesterday evening

Within 12 hours I got answer from Twitter support. This is what they said:

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JuneClippers, Oct 26 03:26 pm (PDT):

Hello,

When you protect your account, all tweets posted after protection will be private: unlisted in Twitter search and 3rd party applications. All tweets posted before protection, however, will still be listed in search engines and 3rd party applications. Twitter does not have the ability to remove content on other websites other than Twitter.com.

Thanks,

JuneClippers

Twitter Trust and Safety

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I really appreciated the quick answer. I imagine it is the result of using the “abused line”. But there was not a single word about the failing page about how to remove content from Google's cashes. The page is still alive today.


My conclusion
If you ever regret something you have written and have a some bad luck - it will be impossible to remove. Google index will stay there at least six month after the source is deleted. And since Twitter partners do not delete their copies - you mistakes will be there forever. Both at Twitter third-party and Google.

This means:

• if you one day decide to lock you Twitter for non-friends because of integrity reasons – all you have written until that day will still be readable
• if you choose to delete a tweet - it might be there "for ever"
• the day you die - your texts will be there. Impossible for your relatives to delete. A scenario I recently have experienced. It might happen to you or your friends next time.

How many people know about this – I think most of the do not. And if they did – some would definitely stop tweeting or at least tweet about other things than now and using another kind of language. 

This can get worse
If you now have started to feel some concern about your Twitter privacy...listen carefully. Anyone can set up an alert on your tweets and get the result straight into their mailbox. Then it is no use trying to delete “bad” tweets. Your failures are already sent away. They might also be sent to some RSS feeders caching information. For example Google Reader caches almost for ever since it uses Google search caches for it's contents.

But absolutely worse scenario - if you are concerned about your integrity & safety - is the SMS auditing of tweets. In just a few minutes someone can show up at your geolocation. I hope it is a friend to you. And even if you do not tweet with geolocation - this is an excellent stalking utility. Every step you take at Twitter may be watched in the same moment by people who perhaps not is your friends.

I wonder if people know about these integrity problems at Twitter? Is this the way we want it to work? Do we want all our tweets cut out in stone? 

My answer is no!

I do not want my tweets cloned to third parties and audited by SMS or mails or stored in any kind of cache. I want an integrity option in my profile where I allow or disallow cloning, alerts and RSS feeders. Meanwhile I recommend all to think over their Twitter philosophy.

I do not want my tweets cut out of stone.
I want to have some control over what Twitter agrees is mine.
I want some Twitter Integrity!

What about you?

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More information
To do a complete search over what Tweets are indexed at Twitter use this command
site:twitter.com 'your username'

Twitter's privacy statement
Twitter's terms of service
Twitters page about how to remove from Google Index 

SMS Subscriptions
Due to Twitters interface you cannot have an SMS subscription without being allowed to follow that person. How twitter partners is set up - I do not know.

RSS feeders
RSS feeders can be enabled weather you are friends or not. Google Reader is cashing information "for ever". Things I deleted months ago are still readable at Google reader since they are based on ordinary indexing schedule. I guess it can take up to six months before old deleted tweets are flushed out.

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It has to be fun, or else we cannot make it
English is not my native language. I hope you can manage