Glossary
The language of getting content removed.
34 plain-English definitions of the laws, policies and processes behind content removal — from GDPR Article 17 to DMCA counter-notices.
C
CCPA / CPRA
The CCPA is California's consumer privacy law, giving California residents rights over their personal information, including the right to ask covered businesses to delete it.
Cease and desist letter
A cease and desist letter is a written demand that a person or company stop a specific activity, such as publishing defamatory or infringing content, and often that they remove it.
Community guidelines
Community guidelines are a platform's own rules about what users may post, and breaking them is the most common ground on which platforms remove content.
Content removal
Content removal is the process of getting harmful or unlawful material taken off the website or platform that hosts it, or out of search results, through policy reports and legal requests.
Counter-notice
A counter-notice is the uploader's formal response to a DMCA takedown, asking the provider to restore material they believe was removed by mistake or misidentification.
D
Data broker
A data broker is a company that collects personal information about people it has no direct relationship with and sells, licenses or publishes it, often through people-search websites.
Deepfake
A deepfake is AI-generated or manipulated image, audio or video content that resembles a real person, place or event and would falsely appear to be authentic.
Defamation
Defamation is a false statement of fact, communicated to others, that damages the reputation of an identifiable person or business.
Digital Services Act (DSA)
The Digital Services Act is the EU regulation on how platforms and hosts handle illegal content, including a duty to act on notices and to explain decisions, refusals included.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM is an email authentication standard in which the sending domain adds a cryptographic signature to each message, which receivers verify against a public key published in DNS.
DMARC
DMARC is an email authentication standard that lets a domain owner tell receiving servers what to do with mail that falsely uses its domain in the From address, and receive reports about it.
DMCA takedown
A DMCA takedown is a notice under US copyright law asking a host, platform or search engine to remove material that infringes a copyright you own or are authorised to enforce.
Doxxing
Doxxing is publishing someone's private personal information — such as a home address, phone number or ID details — to expose, harass or endanger them.
O
oEmbed
oEmbed is an open format that lets a website display content hosted elsewhere, such as a YouTube video or a social post, by fetching embed code from the original platform.
Outdated content removal
Outdated content removal is asking a search engine to update or drop a result whose page has already been deleted or changed, so the old title and snippet stop appearing.
P
Pay-on-success
Pay-on-success is a pricing model in which you pay for a content removal only when it is confirmed; if it can't be removed, you don't pay and any deposit is refunded in full.
Phishing
Phishing is a fraud in which attackers impersonate a trusted brand or person, by email, text or a fake website, to trick people into handing over passwords, payment details or money.
R
Repeat infringer policy
A repeat infringer policy is a service provider's rule for terminating the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe copyright, required to keep DMCA safe-harbour protection.
Right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten lets people in the EU and UK ask search engines to delist results about them that are outdated, irrelevant or excessive, unless the public interest outweighs it.
S
Section 230
Section 230 is the US federal law that generally shields websites and platforms from liability for content posted by their users and protects their good-faith moderation decisions.
SERP de-indexing
SERP de-indexing is the removal of a specific URL from search engine results pages, so it stops appearing in searches even though the page itself may still exist.
Sextortion
Sextortion is a form of blackmail in which someone threatens to share intimate images of a person unless they pay money, send more images or comply with other demands.
SLAPP
A SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) is a legal action brought mainly to silence or intimidate critics, journalists or activists rather than to win a genuine claim.
Source removal
Source removal means deleting content where it is actually published — on the website, platform or server that hosts it — rather than only hiding it from search results.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF is an email authentication standard in which a domain publishes, in DNS, the list of servers allowed to send email on its behalf.
T
TAKE IT DOWN Act
The TAKE IT DOWN Act is a 2025 US federal law requiring covered platforms to remove non-consensual intimate images, including deepfakes, within 48 hours of a valid request.
Takedown notice
A takedown notice is a formal written request asking a platform, host or search engine to remove specific content because it breaks the law or the provider's own rules.
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