Website Whitewashers 'Use Unethical Tactics'

An investigation has revealed the tactics of a company that offers to hide negative information about clients on the Internet. A newspaper has accused Eliminalia of using "unethical or deceptive methods" to achieve its goals, sometimes helping serious criminals.

The company says its main approach is taking advantage of the European Union's "right to be forgotten". This gives people the right to ask websites to remove information that is inaccurate or no longer relevant. The site doesn't have to comply but may have to justify a refusal later on.

While the law is theoretically about websites hosting content, it's often proven more effective to ask Google to remove the sites in question from search engine results. That makes it much less likely people will wind up seeing the information.

However, The Guardian newspaper has worked with non-profit Forbidden Stories to analyze leaked files from Eliminalia. These cover more than 1,500 clients, including those charged with, or convicted of, serious crimes. (Source: qurium.org)

Made-Up Stories Bury Truth

The analysis suggest the "right to be forgotten" approach is by no means the only way the company carries out its work.

Instead it appears to be behind around 600 websites which contain a combination of genuine and bogus news stories. The bogus stories include references to fictional people with the same name as the client. Usually this fictional character is portrayed in a neutral or positive manner.

The articles and headlines are also crafted specifically to appeal to Google's search algorithms. While many websites do this, these have the advantage that it doesn't really matter if anyone reads the articles or finds them useful. The aim is to flood the rankings for the client's name so that if anyone searches for them, the genuine negative searches are so far down that few people will see them.

Bogus Copyright Claims

The Guardian also accused Eliminalia of filing false claims of copyright infringement so that Google removes links to the genuine websites with negative references. The newspaper says that in some cases Elimanlia even posed as news agencies and said reporters had used material without authorization.

Eliminalia did not directly address the allegations, instead saying that the questions the newspaper asked it showed "a partial and dishonorable approach." (Source: theguardian.com)

What's Your Opinion?

Did you know such services exist? Do you think anything this company is doing is (or should be) illegal? Could search engines do a better job of countering such tactics?