Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition | 9/201410 How is your relationship with Google;doyouloveorhateit?Does it display negative information about your dental practice? With righttobeforgottenlegislation,re- lief from career-damaging reviews now seems to be at hand, but does Google really forget? In May, the EU Court of Justice found in favour of a Spanish citi- zen who sued Google for listing in- formation about him that he as- serted was no longer relevant. He alleged that this information was prejudicial to his selling a prop- erty.Fortunatelyforhim,thecourt approved his appeal, contributing substantially to the right to be for- gotten being drafted into Euro- pean law. For Google, this ruling opened the floodgate for requests for thou- sandsoflinkstoberemovedfromits searchengineresultspagefromres- idents in the EU. By July, it was esti- mated that the company had al- ready received at least 70,000 such requests. Many applicants have made use of lawyers or search en- gine optimisation professionals, creating a niche for companies, which are charging the price of an implantpermonthtomanagetheir clients’onlinereputationonGoogle. The company’s hands are tied in this matter. Regardless of its algo- rithms’preferenceinrankingnews andmediasites,theyhavetofollow this ruling. Recent threats of finan- cial penalties in various European countries have softened Google’s resolve further, and there is a simi- larongoingcaseinJapan.Isitpossi- bly the end of the line? For some dentists, this could be the long-awaited answer to their prayers. In an era in which online competitionisomnipresent,tothe patient’s critical eyes, negative re- views can be very damaging to a business. In the past, a lifelong ca- reer could be destroyed by unsub- stantiated hearsay online. A sea- soned professional’s one error wouldpreviouslyalwayshavebeen visible on Google, possibly damag- ingthatperson’sconfidence,career and standing. I have numerous conversationsaboutnegativeFace- book/Yell/Google reviews on a weekly basis here at Dental Focus and receive a large volume of phone calls about how to be re- moved from Google for bad press. Whataboutdataondentistswho have been investigated by the Gen- eral Dental Council and cleared? Is not making this data available fair to them or do patients deserve to know the full story regardless of how much the dentist has invested in developing or redeeming him- self or herself? If you were a prospective patient, would you perform a search and be put off by any negative findings? No doubt, there is a minority who deserve to be highlighted on Google for all their wrong-doings. Whatisthepositionregardinghav- ing their names omitted? In the first week of Google mak- ing available a means for search re- moval requests, 22 per cent (the greatestnumberbynation)ofallap- plicationscamefromtheUK.When requesting removal from Google’s searchengineresultspage,theuser must not only list all links he or she wants to be removed, but also pro- videthereasonthatheorshewants to have such links removed. Inva- sion of privacy appears to be a pop- ularreason. Unfortunately, the company has alsohadnumerouscasesoffraudu- lent removal requests from imper- sonatorstryingtoharmthecompe- tition. It seems that there is always goodandbadpractice,whateverthe medium. In order to manage this, Google states: “We will assess each individ- ual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information. When eval- uating your request, we will look at whether the results include out- dated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public in- terest in the information—for ex- ample,informationaboutfinancial scams, professional malpractice, criminalconvictions,orpubliccon- ductofgovernmentofficials.” Will you be safe once a link has been removed from Google? There are sites such as hiddenfrom- google.com that openly display all hidden results. Even if a result has been hidden, the bottom of the re- sults page on Google states that some results have been removed. At times, it even provides a link to hiddenfromgoogle.com. Itappearsthat,evenifsomething hasbeendeleted,Googlestillknows everything about you. Everything on the Internet is recorded forever (your party antics, hangovers and selfies), and where one stops track- ing, another will take over. If a pa- tient really wanted to dig up some dirt,withalimitedbitofknowledge, heorshestillcoulddoso. Naz Haque,Dental Focus ??????????TRENDS & APPLICATIONS Video www.hagerwerken.de Tel. +49(203) 99269-0  Fax +49(203) 299283 GapSeal® Sealing of Hollow Spaces in Implants Seals implant gaps and hollow spaces Durably stops infiltration of germs into the hollow spaces and the reinfection of periimplantal tissue Effectively avoids a main reason for periimplantitis Sorry, closed from today! ? ? ? Online reviews: Does Google really forget? Naz Haque,Dental Focus CONTACT INFO Naz Haque,aka the Scientist,is Op- erations Manager at Dental Focus. He has a background in mobile and network computing,and has experience supporting a wide range of blue-chip brands,from Apple to Xerox.As an expert in search engine optimisation,Naz is passionate about helping clients develop strategies to enhance their brand and increase the return on investment from their dental practice websites.

Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

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