Your digital footprint tells your story—sometimes the wrong one. Old mugshots, outdated press releases, false news articles, or government listings can appear in search results for years, shaping how employers, clients, and even loved ones see you. At National Security Law Firm (NSLF), our mission is to help clients reclaim control of their online presence by permanently removing or deindexing harmful material across the web.
Understanding What “Removing Yourself” Really Means
Removing yourself from the internet doesn’t mean erasing all traces of your existence. It means removing or obscuring personal information, records, or content that harms your reputation, safety, or livelihood.
There are three main approaches:
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Full Removal – The website deletes the content or replaces it with an error page.
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Deindexing – The page remains live but is hidden from search engines like Google and Bing, making it practically invisible to the public.
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Suppression – Publishing positive or neutral material to push harmful content down in search results.
Deindexing, in particular, is one of the most powerful and realistic outcomes. Once a page is removed from Google’s search index, it’s “as good as gone” — no one will find it unless they already know the direct URL.
Why the Internet Remembers Everything
Unlike printed newspapers that faded with time, online content can linger indefinitely. Publications, police departments, and even data brokers keep archives that are automatically indexed by search engines.
In a pre-digital world, a story might have run for a week and disappeared. Today, it can follow you for life. NSLF attorneys routinely argue that the “newsworthiness” of old or resolved matters diminishes over time, and keeping them public serves no legitimate purpose.
Where Your Information Might Be
When clients come to NSLF, we first identify where their name or information appears online. Common sources include:
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News Publications – Local papers, national media outlets, and newswire syndications.
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Government Websites – DOJ or police department press releases, court dockets, and arrest blotters.
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Docket Aggregators – Sites like Trellis, UniCourt, or CourtListener that republish court filings.
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Mugshot & Data Broker Sites – Often profit-driven and legally dubious.
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Blogs and Forums – Individual users or personal sites that may spread misinformation.
Each category requires a different legal and negotiation strategy.
The Legal Framework: What Can and Can’t Be Done
There is no “Right to Be Forgotten” law in the United States. U.S. citizens cannot automatically demand deletion of personal data, unlike those in the European Union under GDPR Article 17.
However, several state laws and platform policies can be leveraged:
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Mugshot laws in states like Florida and California prohibit websites from charging for removals.
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Expungement and sealing orders can persuade government sites to remove arrest or case-related pages.
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Data privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) can force certain databases to delete personal data.
Our attorneys use these and other ethical, legal, and journalistic policy arguments to achieve removals—even when the law doesn’t mandate it.
How the Removal Process Works at NSLF
At NSLF, we follow a proprietary multi-step pipeline that includes investigation, documentation, drafting persuasive removal requests, and handling appeals. Each request is carefully tailored, emphasizing both legal justification and human impact—for example, showing how a lingering article causes ongoing employment loss, mental health strain, or harm to a client’s children.
If a request is denied, we appeal—often successfully—by focusing on ethical journalism principles and search visibility compromise (deindexing) rather than demanding deletion. Many editors are more willing to agree to deindexing once we frame it as a reasonable middle ground.
What You Can Do Right Now
Here are first steps anyone can take to start regaining control of their digital footprint:
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Stop Googling your name. Every click reinforces the relevance of those results to your identity.
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Make a list of direct URLs (the exact web addresses) of any harmful links. Don’t use search engines to find them.
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Contact NSLF for a free consultation — our team can assess the likelihood of removal and outline strategy options.
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Avoid retaliation or DIY takedown attempts — these often backfire or create additional indexed pages.
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Monitor your name monthly with Google Alerts to stay informed of new mentions.
Why Choose National Security Law Firm
At National Security Law Firm, we’re more than lawyers — we’re strategists trained in media, privacy, and negotiation. Our Content Removal Division, led by Matt Pollack, has successfully removed or deindexed hundreds, often thousands, of damaging articles that other firms said were impossible.
We are also the only law firm in America offering online content removal on a true contingency basis — you pay nothing unless we succeed. Our nationwide team understands how publishers, search engines, and government entities operate, and we use that insider knowledge to deliver permanent solutions.
📖 Visit our Internet Content Removal Resource Hub to explore FAQs, timelines, cost, and strategy.
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