Remove my name from Google — the delisting route that works
Since Google Spain (2014) you can have outdated or irrelevant results delisted from name-searches in Europe. Google has a form; most valid requests succeed without a lawyer.
- Decide the target: source or search resultDeleting at the source site kills it everywhere — try that first with an Art. 17 request. When the source won’t or lawfully needn’t delete (news archives), delisting from name-search is the tool.
- Collect the exact URLsSearch your name (in quotes, plus city/employer variants). Copy each result URL. Delisting is per-URL, per-name.
- File Google’s legal removal formSearch “Google right to be forgotten form” or go via google.com/legal — choose “delist under European data protection law”, list URLs, and explain per URL why it is inadequate, irrelevant or excessive for a search on your name today: old, wrong, resolved, private by nature.
- Handle the balancing test honestlyDelisting yields to public interest: professional conduct in your current public role, recent serious matters, or your own public statements are hard to delist. Spent convictions, old debts resolved, doxxed addresses and health data delist well. Special-category data weighs in your favour (CJEU GC and Others).
- Refused? Escalate freeGoogle must explain refusals. Counter once with sharper arguments, then complain to your DPA — search-delisting disputes are core DPA work and they overturn refusals regularly. Repeat the flow at Bing (Microsoft has an equivalent form).
What delisting does — and doesn’t: the page still exists and remains findable via other search terms; it stops surfacing when someone searches your name in EU versions of the search engine. That is usually what matters — recruiters and landlords search names. Legal basis: Google Spain (C-131/12) plus Art. 17; the refined balancing rules come from the CJEU’s GC and Others ruling. For content that is defamatory or intimate rather than merely outdated, don’t stop at delisting — use the platform take-down routes in the image-removal guide and national press-council or court routes for libel.
Verified against the sources above on 18 July 2026. Information, not legal advice.