# Right to be forgotten USA: what the law gives you

Right to be forgotten USA: there is no federal right, but state deletion laws, record sealing and search policies cover parts of the ground. See which.

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The right to be forgotten in the USA does not exist as a general legal right. No federal statute lets you require a search engine or a news site to drop accurate, lawfully published information about you because it has become old or unflattering, and the First Amendment makes a law of that kind very hard to write. What the United States has instead is a patchwork: state privacy laws that let you delete data a business holds about you, a California scheme aimed at data brokers, record sealing for some criminal matters, rules on credit and background reports, and voluntary search engine policies.

Each piece covers a narrow slice, and none of them reaches a news article, a court record or a blog post by default. The useful question is therefore not whether you have the right, but which of these routes matches the thing you want gone, and what each one will not touch. This guide goes to the primary source for each route and says plainly where a source could not be read.

This is information, not legal advice. State laws differ and change, facts decide outcomes, and your own attorney in the right state decides what applies to you.

<div class="box"><b>The short version</b>
<ul><li>There is no US law that lets you delete accurate, lawful, published information about you from a search engine or a publisher because time has passed.</li><li>State privacy laws let you ask a business to delete personal data it holds. They do not reach content that someone else published, and they carry free speech and public record exceptions.</li><li>California's Delete Act and its DROP tool target data brokers, which is where most "find a person" listings come from. Residents of California only.</li><li>Record sealing and credit reporting rules can change what background checks report, but they do not rewrite a news article or make a search engine drop it.</li><li>Match the thing you want gone to one route: data broker, platform, publisher, court record, or search engine request.</li></ul></div>

<figure class="keyfacts">
<div class="keyfacts-grid">
<div><b>45 days</b><span>to answer a California deletion request, extendable by 45 more</span></div>
<div><b>600+</b><span>registered data brokers reached by one DROP request</span></div>
<div><b>14 states</b><span>with automatic record sealing laws, by one advocacy group's own count</span></div>
</div>
<p class="fig-src">California Attorney General CCPA page and privacy.ca.gov DROP page, as read; the sealing count is the Clean Slate Initiative's own tally (its announcement of the fourteenth state), not an official government figure.</p>
</figure>

## Why the United States has no right to be forgotten

The first reason is constitutional. The Supreme Court has repeatedly protected the publication of truthful information that was lawfully obtained. In Cox Broadcasting v. Cohn, the Court held that once true information is disclosed in public court documents open to public inspection, the press cannot be sanctioned for publishing it. In Florida Star v. B.J.F., the Court applied a principle from earlier cases: if a newspaper lawfully obtains truthful information about a matter of public significance, state officials may not punish its publication absent a need to further a state interest of the highest order.

Neither decision says that truthful publication is always protected: the Court in Florida Star described its holding as limited. The opinions themselves could not be re-opened for this guide, so read them before citing them. But the direction is clear enough that lawmakers have not tried to copy European erasure rules for publishers. In the European Union, GDPR Article 17 lets a person seek erasure on several grounds, but it also carves out processing necessary for exercising freedom of expression and information. The US starting point is stronger on the speech side: a lawful, accurate account of a real event is the kind of publication the Constitution protects.

The second reason is statutory. [Section 230 of Title 47](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230) provides that a provider or user of an interactive computer service is not treated as the publisher or speaker of information supplied by another content provider. Section 230(e) says the section does not impair enforcement of federal criminal statutes and does not limit or expand intellectual property law. In practice, this means a platform is generally not legally forced to take down a user's post just because the post is about you, and a claim usually has to go against the author. The platform's own rules, not a right to be forgotten, are what decide most takedowns.

The third reason is practical. Even a perfect legal right against one company would not reach the web as a whole. Copies of an article, a scraped record and a broker listing sit on different servers under different owners. That is why the rest of this guide sorts routes by who holds the data.

## What the First Amendment and the courts leave you

A court will still act on some content. Defamation (a false statement of fact that harms reputation), true threats, harassment, copyright infringement and non-consensual intimate imagery all have their own legal paths, and the federal shield in section 230 does not stop a copyright claim. Those routes depend on the content being false, unlawful or infringing. Content that is accurate, lawfully published and merely old does not fit any of them.

A case that shows the line is Martin v. Hearst, decided by the Second Circuit on January 28, 2015. A person was arrested, the state later dropped the charges, and Connecticut's criminal records statute required the arrest record to be deleted from official files. She asked news outlets to remove their online articles and argued that the erasure made them false and defamatory. The court disagreed: erasing the official record did not change the historical fact. She had been arrested, and the articles accurately said so when published.

The lesson is direct. A legal outcome in your favor, such as dropped charges or a sealed file, changes official records. It does not make an earlier accurate news story false, and it does not oblige the publisher to remove it. Whether a publisher chooses to update or unpublish is an editorial decision, which is a request, not a right.

<aside class="callout">
<span class="callout-label">Limit</span>
<h4>Dropped charges do not make an accurate article false</h4>
<p>An arrest that happened was reported accurately when it was published. Courts have refused to treat later sealing or dismissal as proof that the story was wrong. Ask for an update or a note, and do not threaten a defamation claim you cannot win.</p>
</aside>

## What a state deletion law actually deletes

The best-known state route is California's. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended, lets a consumer ask a business to delete personal information the business has collected from the consumer. The [California Attorney General's page](https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa) says the business must respond within 45 calendar days and may take another 45 if it tells you, for 90 days in total. It also says the business must offer at least two ways to submit a request, and cannot require you to create an account to do so.

Three limits matter more than the process.

**Who is covered.** The law applies to for-profit businesses that do business in California and meet at least one threshold: annual gross revenue over $25 million, buying, selling or sharing the personal information of 100,000 or more California residents or households, or deriving 50 percent or more of revenue from selling or sharing such information. Nonprofits and government agencies are generally outside it.

**What it deletes.** The statute's wording, as generally quoted, is information the business collected from the consumer. It is a right over your relationship with a company: its customer database, its marketing list, its app data. It is not a right to have a newspaper stop describing you or a forum stop hosting a thread. A person asking a site that scraped their profile from elsewhere should read that wording closely, because the information was not collected from them.

**What it may keep.** The Attorney General's page notes that exceptions apply. Section 1798.105 of the Civil Code lists the reasons a business may decline, and the definition of personal information in the same statute leaves out publicly available information. The legislature's text could not be opened for this guide, so read both provisions on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov before relying on a deletion request. Expect free speech and public record carve-outs, which are the statutory form of the constitutional point above.

So the California right to delete is real and useful against a company that holds your account, your purchase history or your tracking profile. It is the wrong tool against a news archive or a court docket.

## How other state privacy laws compare

Many other states have passed comprehensive consumer privacy laws, and the number grows with each legislative session. The count changes with each legislative session, so no figure is given here; check the current list for your state. The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act is a useful second example, read here on the [Virginia legislative site](https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title59.1/chapter53/section59.1-577/).

Virginia lets a consumer ask a controller to "delete personal data provided by or obtained about the consumer." That wording is wider than California's "collected from the consumer": it reaches data the controller obtained from other sources. The controller must respond within 45 days, may extend once by 45 more with notice, must run an appeals process, and must answer an appeal within 60 days. If the appeal is denied, it must tell you how to contact the Attorney General.

The same statute narrows its reach. Personal data excludes publicly available information, which includes information lawfully made available through government records and information a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully available to the public through widely distributed media. A consumer is a resident acting in an individual or household capacity, not in a commercial or employment context. And section 59.1-582 says nothing in the chapter is an obligation on controllers and processors that adversely affects the rights or freedoms of any persons, such as free speech under the First Amendment.

<div class="tablewrap"><table><thead><tr><th>Question</th><th>California (CCPA)</th><th>Virginia (VCDPA)</th><th>Where it ends</th></tr></thead><tbody>
<tr><td><strong>Whose data</strong></td><td>Collected from the consumer</td><td>Provided by or obtained about the consumer</td><td>Neither reaches content published by others</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Response time</strong></td><td>45 days, plus 45</td><td>45 days, plus 45</td><td>Appeal route differs by state</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Public information</strong></td><td>Public information excluded; see statute</td><td>Government records and widely distributed media excluded</td><td>News and court records stay</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Free speech</strong></td><td>Exceptions apply; see statute</td><td>First Amendment savings clause</td><td>Speech wins over deletion</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>

The pattern holds in both statutes: a right to delete what a company holds about you, and a wall around anything that looks like publishing or public record. A state law you have not read may differ, so read the deletion section and the definition of personal information before you file.

## The California Delete Act and DROP: one request to data brokers

Most people who want to be forgotten in the US are chasing listings that assemble an address, relatives and a phone number. Those come from data brokers, and this is the one place where US law has built a mass deletion tool.

California's Delete Act requires data brokers to register with the state. The state's privacy agency says on its [DROP page](https://privacy.ca.gov/drop/) that since January 1, 2026, California residents can use DROP, the Delete Request and Opt-out Platform, to submit one deletion request covering all registered brokers. The privacy.ca.gov page says a request reaches over 600 registered data brokers, that it is free, and that residency is verified through the California Identity Gateway or Login.gov.

The timing is easy to misread. Brokers had to begin processing DROP requests on August 1, 2026, and they must access the platform at least once every 45 days. The agency's page says status updates can take up to 90 days to appear and that brokers should finish their initial download and upload cycle by November 2026 and then delete data every 45 days. 

Three limits. DROP is for California residents. It reaches registered data brokers, not newspapers, forums, social platforms or court sites. And the main agency page does not list the exemptions that apply, so assume a broker may keep records the law exempts. Residents of other states should check their own state law and each broker's opt-out page.

## Sealing and expungement: records, not search results

Criminal record relief is the closest thing US law has to a legal "forgetting," and it works on official records. The terms vary by state: expungement, sealing, set-aside, and automatic clearing can mean quite different things. The Clean Slate Initiative, an advocacy group, counts fourteen states with automatic record clearing laws. Eligibility rules, waiting periods and offense lists differ by state, so read your own state's statute, and expect nothing in such a law to recall copies held by private databases.

Two federal sources bear on background checks. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires a consumer reporting agency to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, and it limits how long some adverse items may be reported, with exceptions for larger credit, insurance and employment decisions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has also issued an advisory opinion on background screening that addresses expunged and sealed records. The Act's section 605 text and the CFPB document could not be read for this guide, so check the current wording and the exact time limits before relying on either.

That is useful if the problem is a background check, which is a consumer report. It is not a rule for search engines, news sites or people-search pages that are not consumer reporting agencies. It also means a sealed record can survive in older news coverage, in scraped copies and in a mugshot archive. Sealing is the right first move when the official record is the source of the problem, because it removes the root and gives you a document to show others, but it is not the end.

For minors, California has a narrow law of its own, Business and Professions Code section 22581, which concerns removal of content a minor posted on certain sites and apps. Its text could not be re-read for this guide, so check its scope and exceptions before relying on it. By design it is about a minor's own posts, not what others said.

## Search engines, platforms and publishers: where the real decisions are made

Because law covers so little, the rules that matter day to day are private. [Google's personal information policy](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730) says you can ask it to remove results showing your address, phone number or email, confidential government IDs, bank or card numbers, images of signatures or IDs, private records such as medical records, and confidential passwords. It will also remove doxxing content where a page has personal information along with threats or calls for harm or harassment, or a significant amount of aggregated personal information with no legitimate purpose. The page is plain about the limits: Google can only remove things from Google Search results, the request covers only the URLs you list, and content that is about something important or newsworthy might not be taken down. The page did not mention public records.

Other search engines and AI assistants have their own forms and their own standards, and none of them is a legal right. Removal from a result list does not touch the page itself. To remove the page, you contact its publisher or host, and the publisher's answer is its choice unless the content is unlawful or violates the platform's terms.

When the content is accurate and public, the lawful strategy is often not deletion but placing better accurate material beside it, which is what [suppression](/suppress-negative-results) does. That route has its own risks and timeline, and it never makes something disappear; it changes what a reader finds first.

## Which route fits which problem

Start with who holds the thing, then pick the route. The table also says when a route will fail, which is as useful as saying when it works.

<div class="tablewrap"><table><thead><tr><th>What you want gone</th><th>First route</th><th>Main limit</th><th>Likely outcome</th></tr></thead><tbody>
<tr><td><strong>Your account or profile data at a company</strong></td><td>State deletion request to the business</td><td>Applies only to covered businesses; exceptions apply</td><td>Often succeeds</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>People-search or broker listing (California resident)</strong></td><td>DROP, then the broker's own opt-out</td><td>Not all listings are brokers; some data is exempt</td><td>Often succeeds over cycles</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>People-search listing (other states)</strong></td><td>Broker opt-out page and state law, if any</td><td>Slow, repeats when data is re-collected</td><td>Mixed</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Accurate news article</strong></td><td>Polite request to the publisher for an update or note</td><td>No legal duty; accurate reporting is protected</td><td>Usually a refusal; sometimes an update</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>False statement of fact</strong></td><td>Platform report, then a defamation route with counsel</td><td>Section 230 shields the platform; claim goes to the author</td><td>Depends on proof</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Sealed or dismissed criminal matter</strong></td><td>Sealing or expungement through the court</td><td>Does not touch private copies or old articles</td><td>Fixes the official record</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Address, phone, ID number in search results</strong></td><td>Search engine personal information request</td><td>Page stays online; newsworthy content may stay</td><td>Often succeeds for sensitive data</td></tr>
<tr><td><strong>Intimate image shared without consent</strong></td><td>Platform report and specialist removal path</td><td>Different law; see a specialist</td><td>Strong cases usually succeed</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>

Read the table from the left column. If two rows describe your problem, run the route with the faster clock first, usually the platform or broker request, and keep the legal route in reserve.

## A worked scenario, with the assumptions stated

This is an invented scenario with generic parties. Assume a person lives in California and has three problems. An arrest six years ago led to dismissed charges. A local news article from the time is still online. A people-search site and several data brokers list a home address and the names of relatives. The person also has an old forum account that a company still holds.

The order matters because some routes take months and others take days.

<figure class="fig">
<figcaption><b>A realistic timeline for the scenario</b></figcaption>
<ol class="fig-steps">
<li><b>Week 1: sort the problems by holder</b>List every URL and every company. Label each as broker, platform, publisher, court record or search result. Do not write to anyone yet.</li>
<li><b>Week 1 to 2: file the requests that are cheap and likely to work</b>Submit one DROP request, send a deletion request to the company that holds the old account, and use the search engine's personal information form for the pages that show the address.</li>
<li><b>Weeks 2 to 8: handle the record</b>Ask a defense or record-clearing attorney whether the dismissed matter qualifies for sealing or other relief in that state. Relief is slow, because courts set the pace.</li>
<li><b>Month 2 to 3: ask the publisher</b>After the record is sealed or dismissed, write to the newspaper with the court document and ask for an update note or a removal. Expect a refusal in many cases; an update note is a realistic ask.</li>
<li><b>Month 3 to 6: check and repeat</b>DROP works in cycles of up to 45 days, so confirm status after each cycle. Search the name again and expect brokers to re-add data that they collect again.</li>
<li><b>Ongoing: build accurate pages</b>If the article stays, owned and accurate pages about your work reduce how much weight one old story carries in a name search.</li>
</ol>
</figure>

The timings above are experience, not promises, and the result varies by state, broker and publisher. The article may well stay online. What changes is the address listings, the official record, and the position of the story in a name search.

## Mistakes that make these routes fail

**Citing a right that does not exist.** A letter that demands removal under a "right to be forgotten" tells the recipient you do not understand US law, and it is usually ignored. Name the real basis: a state deletion law, a platform policy, a court order, a factual error.

**Threatening a defamation claim over an accurate article.** Truth defeats the claim. A threat can also lead to a second story about the dispute, which is worse for the reader who searches your name.

**Using a deletion request on the wrong holder.** A state deletion right works against the business that holds your data, not the site that quoted you. Sending it to a newspaper wastes weeks.

**Assuming sealing fixes the web.** A sealed file stops the court system and compliant background checks from releasing the record. It does not recall every copy. Plan to ask for the copies you can find.

**Ignoring the clock on agencies and brokers.** Brokers re-collect. A removal that is not rechecked in a few months may come back.

**Paying someone to promise removal.** No lawful service can promise the removal of accurate, public information. If an offer sounds like a certainty, the claim is not credible.

**Relying on one jurisdiction.** The state of your residence, the state where a court case sat, and the state of the publisher can all differ. Check the one that controls the route you are using.

## Your next step: choose one holder and one route

Pick the single item that costs you the most and identify who holds it. If it is a broker listing or a company database, the request is cheap and fast. If it is a published article or a court record, the path is slower and starts with the facts, not with a letter.

<div class="box hot"><b>If this is happening to you now</b>
<p>If a result is accurate but hurting you and you are unsure which route fits, a private review of what is listed, who holds it and what can lawfully move is the practical first step. Start with the <a href="/audit">private audit</a>.</p></div>

At Reputation Partners, we begin by sorting each item by holder and by whether it is accurate, outdated, unlawful or private. We do not promise removal of accurate public information, and we say early when a route will not work. Your own counsel decides on any legal step.

## Questions people ask

### Is there any right to be forgotten in the United States?

Not as a general right. The closest equivalents are state privacy laws that let you delete data a business holds, the California Delete Act for data brokers, record sealing for some criminal matters, and voluntary policies at search engines and platforms. None forces a publisher to delete accurate, lawful reporting about you.

### Can I make Google delete a news article about me in the US?

Not as a matter of right. Google says it can remove only results from its own search, may decline content that is newsworthy, and you must list the exact URLs. The article stays on the publisher's site unless the publisher agrees to change it or a court orders it.

### Does the CCPA let me delete things said about me online?

No. The statute lets a consumer ask a business to delete personal information it collected from the consumer, and it lists a free speech exception. It does not give you a right over what other people publish. It is a tool for company databases and broker-held data.

### Who can use California's DROP tool?

California residents, verified through the state's identity gateway or Login.gov. The state page says one request reaches over 600 registered data brokers and that a parent or relative can sometimes submit for another resident. It does not cover newspapers or social sites, and it may leave exempt records in place.

### If my record is sealed, will old news stories disappear?

Usually not. Sealing changes what courts and compliant background screeners release. A news article written when the arrest was public is an accurate historical account, and the Second Circuit in Martin v. Hearst refused to treat later erasure of the arrest record as making an article false. You can ask the publisher for an update note.

### Can a lawyer force a website to remove my information?

Only where there is a legal ground: a false statement of fact, copyright infringement, a protective order or certain unlawful content. Section 230 generally shields a platform from claims over user posts, so claims go to the author. Accurate, lawfully published information is the hardest case.