How to Remove a Court Record from Plainsite (and Keep It Off Google)

Below are some frequently asked questions about PlainSite and information privacy.

Where did you find data about me?

Information on PlainSite comes from two main sources: visitors to the site, and public databases. When you browse any web site, including PlainSite, your web browser transmits information about your IP address and/or DNS hostname (which refers to the computer you are using) so that web servers know where to send the web pages being requested.

The content on our web pages generally comes from a variety of government databases that contain public information, cross-referenced with a private database of information about legal entities maintained by PlainSite’s owner and operator, Think Computer Corporation. We do not purchase information of any kind for PlainSite from private entities, nor do we sell information about our users to others.

Specifically, PlainSite contains information from the United States court system’s PACER database, various IRS, FEC, GPO and USPTO databases, information provided by various state agencies and courts, and ThinkLink.

Does PlainSite provide credit reports?

No. Think Computer Corporation is not a “consumer reporting agency” pursuant to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq or similar state laws, and neither PlainSite nor the data contained therein constitute a “consumer report” or a “credit report” under such laws. The data provided on PlainSite may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing PlainSite, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.

Furthermore, PlainSite does not charge for credit-related information, so if you sign up for a PlainSite Pro or Pro Se account, you will not be able to access any additional credit-related data because that is simply not information we offer.

Does the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) require you to remove information about me?

No. The CCPA does not apply to PlainSite. The CCPA requires certain very large service providers to remove information collected from California consumers upon request. PlainSite does not meet the CCPA’s financial size threshold and we collect the vast majority of the information on our site from public sources, not consumers. If you are a PlainSite Pro or Pro Se member and you think we have collected data about you that you would like removed, please get in touch. Otherwise, we are not obligated to remove any public information by the CCPA.

Can you remove information about me anyway?

To the extent that information is publicly available and provided by the government, we do not remove (e.g. delete) data from PlainSite without a court order. Even if we did remove information, it would still be freely available on a number of other web sites that provide open access to legal information that we have no control over. Here is what we can do:

• Search engine suppression. We do occasionally suppress information from being indexed by search engines by adding specific web pages and documents to our search engine suppression list.
• Court order compliance. If information has been sealed or expunged by the government since the time when we first accessed the data, and a court order is provided, we are glad to delete information according to the terms of the order.
• Account number redaction. We will redact Social Security Numbers and other pieces of sensitive information published by the government in error upon request.
• Name abbreviation. In some cases where we feel that there is a strong public interest in keeping information available, but a particular person’s privacy interests are also strongly compromised, we will on rare occasion modify names contained in public documents and replace them only with initials to avoid the indexing of the names by search engines.

We cannot guarantee any particular action for any particular record ahead of time.

While we at one point permitted requests for information removal via e-mail, we now ask that you use our web-based, easy-to-use Contact Us Form to get in touch with us about an issue you may have with information on PlainSite. Using the form helps streamline the process, as we typically many requests per day and have only a small staff to respond.

If a piece of public information is harming you or someone you know, the best course of action is to attempt to have it sealed or expunged by the government agency publishing the information first, and then to get in touch with us.

How do you decide which cases to act on in which manner?

We weigh a number of factors when considering what to do about public information’s availability on-line. Though there is no overarching “right to privacy” in the United States, we still take privacy very seriously, and understand that information access can affect job prospects, family life, and other considerations. However, we also have to balance the way in which hiding information affects others.

When evaluating a given request, the following factors cause us to generally keep information accessible to the public:

• Frequent public access. Many PlainSite records have a “hit” counter that measures the number of access attempts logged. If a record has roughly 100 or more hits, we interpret that measure as a sign of strong public interest, which means the information should be kept available. This is one of the most important factors we look at.
• Involvement of government. Federal, state and local government affects all of us. If a given record involves a government official or agency, it’s likely that others will want to know.
• Large amounts of money. Any case involving $2,500 USD or more is generally above the threshold of a “small claims” case and generally significant, but even many small claims cases involving more than $1,000 USD are of interest to the public.
• Serious criminal charges. Cases that involve serious crimes, but do not jeopardize the safety of any individual, are of particular interest to the public.
• Recent and ongoing matters. With some exceptions related to court precedent (see below), records pertaining to matters before the government that have been recently filed (within five years) or are ongoing are generally of more interest to the public than older matters.
• Precedential cases. The court system works on the basis of stare decisis, which is Latin for “to stand by things decided.” Decisions in one case almost always reference decisions made in prior cases. Records from frequently-cited cases are therefore of particular public interest. Cases that have been appealed even once are generally considered to be an especially important part of the body of case law, and we do not suppress these cases as a rule.
• Novel issues of law. A case pertaining to a new issue, such as international law or technology law, is generally of interest to the public.
• Major societal issues. A case pertaining to incoming inequality, student loan debt or current events would generally be of interest to the public.
• Business and intellectual property issues. While we value individual privacy, business activity before courts and government agencies almost always belongs in the public domain. Patents and trademarks are public by design.
• Multiple cases or unusual filing activity. While we might typically suppress individual bankruptcy cases, an individual who has filed for bankruptcy ten times should not enjoy the protection of information suppression. Even two cases of any kind may make a trend apparent that would otherwise be unclear.
• Litigation involving lawyers and/or law firms. Lawyers are officers of the court and their actions are therefore especially deserving of public scrutiny.

When evaluating a given request, the following factors cause us to generally keep information hidden from search engines, and outweigh all of the above factors:

• Individual uncontested bankruptcy cases. The bankruptcy process is intended to help people start anew, and we try to honor requests to suppress bankruptcy information if it is getting in the way.
• Car crashes. Lawsuits involving vehicles tend to involve medical information and cause embarrassment. Car crashes are sadly a fact of life for people of all backgrounds.
• Family matters. We tend to think that with rare exceptions, divorces, custody battles and other family disputes should not be broadcast.
• Matters involving minors. We try to limit the exposure of minors in government filings.

We do not take the following factors into consideration at all:

• Personal attributes. We’re not interested in your race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, and will disregard any information you provide us along these lines.
• Health. We do not give preferential treatment to individuals suffering from any particular condition or disease.
• Profit motive. We do not treat non-profit organizations and their affiliates any differently than for-profit organizations.
• Other web sites’ actions. We do not consider actions that other web sites have taken with regard to suppression or removal requests.
• European Law. The so-called “Right To Be Forgotten” does not apply in the United States of America.

Finally, although we try to redact Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, passport numbers, and other unique identifiers from documents where possible, we generally do not find the presence of such information to necessarily justify any other action in a given case.