How to be unGoogleable
I recently received an odd plea for help. A former colleague e-mailed me to request that all references to her be expunged from the online news blog I coordinate for a university here in Rome. It was a legitimate request, I concluded, so I went into the old posts and deleted the one in which her name appeared. It was about an upcoming event on campus from more than a year ago and had absolutely no news value to readers today.
She was grateful for my quick response. A few minutes later though she was back in my in-box. This time, the tone was less gracious. She Googled her name and still the reference appeared. Clicking on the link brought you to a dead URL, but still there was enough of an article snippet visible on the Google search results page to identify her with the university. She told me she’d prefer to be completely “unGoogleable”.
