Posted by Richard Crowley on 04/29/07 22:07

"gg" wrote ...
> Hello Group
>
> I was googling my name and found postings that I have on this group
> from 1995, I would like them deleted, these postings were posted at
> the time with the understanding that the posting were accessible to
> this group only, now it seems anyone that googles my name, can access
> these postings from 1995, is there any way to delete them?
>
> please advise and help.

You appear to not understand how Usenet works. Suggest doing
a bit of research to reset your expectations. You could start here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet

1) There is no "moderator" on this Usenet newsgroup.
Some Usenet Newsgroups are moderated. They usually include
the word "moderated" in the title. But moderation only controls
what messages get submitted, once they get sent to the network,
they are out there forever. Newsgoup moderators have no
control over how individual news servers handle the messages.

2) Nothing about this (or any other) newsgroup has anything to
do with Google, with these two provisions...

a) Google offers a web-based gateway to the Usenet Newsgroups.
Google has no exclusive rights to do this. Anybody with network
access could do it (and some have). Usenet existed a decade (or
more) before Google was invented and exists quite separately and
independently of Google.

b) Google bought a Usenet archive from DejaNews and continues
to operate it. Google also has no exclusive "rights" to keep an
archive of the Usenet Newsgroups. Anybody can save messages
for as long as they wish. Google can decide for themselves whether
or not to honor cancel messages. They are not compelled to (or
not to). Evidence suggests that they ignore cancel messages
unless challenged with serious legal consequences.

3) NNTP is designed with the ability to cancel posted messages.
But because the network has become so fast (compared to 20
years ago when Usenet was invented), it is quite probable that
your news server has forwarded your message to scores or
hundreds of other servers before you even decide to cancel your
message. The longer you wait (measured in milliseconds) and
the more other servers are involved, the less likely it is that you
can effectively cancel a message. For all practical purposes, you
can assume that messages are out there forever as soon as you
click the button.

4) Unless you have a really good legal reason and/or big bucks to
spend on legal challenges, getting Google (or anybody else) to
remove historic messages seems really unlikely.

5) Some have said that Google DOES honor "X-NoArchive"
tags, but not everyone does. You can assume that somebody
(or likely several people) have copies of your messages regardless
of ANYTHING you can do.

Best policy is to not post anything you don't want to be
publicly available on the internet forever.

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