Terms of Use

What this site is

This is a reference published by one person, Bill Hartzer, about what happens when something about a private individual turns up online: what has a published route to removal, what somebody else decides, and what does not come down at all.

It is general information. It is written about categories of situation, not about yours, because I do not know yours. Two people can find what looks like the same thing and be in completely different positions, depending on who hosts it, which written rule it does or does not break, and who decides.

Using the site means these terms apply to you. They were last reviewed on August 15, 2026.

Reading this does not create an engagement

Nothing on this site is an offer to take on your matter, and nothing you do here accepts one. Reading a page does not start anything. Sending an email does not start anything. Filling in the contact form — which posts nowhere and simply opens a message in your own mail application — does not start anything.

Work begins only when it has been discussed, a conflict check has been done, and the scope and terms are agreed in writing. Until then, treat anything said in correspondence as preliminary. That protects you as much as me: it means nobody is quietly on the clock, and it means an early conversation can end with “do not spend money on this” without either of us having committed to anything.

This is not legal advice, and I am not an attorney

Bill Hartzer is not an attorney and nothing on this site is legal advice. Where a route through a problem is legal rather than technical — a court order, sealing or expungement, a defamation claim, a demand letter, a dispute under the statute governing background reports — the pages here name the boundary and stop.

If you have a legal question, it is for a lawyer. If a page here describes what a platform does with a report, that is a description of that platform's published process, and it is not an opinion about your legal position, your rights, or what any court would do.

Quoted policies carry the date they were read

The value of this site is that it quotes operators rather than paraphrasing them. Every quotation names the operator and the date its page was read, and that date is part of the quotation rather than decoration.

Platform policies, help pages and removal forms change constantly, and none of it is announced. A policy accurately quoted on the date it was read can be wrong three months later. So: check the source before you rely on it, and where a page here and the operator's current page disagree, the operator is right and this site is out of date. Tell me when you find one of those.

Links to other sites

Where a page links out, it links to a primary source — an operator's own documentation, a government page, a court decision — so you can read the thing itself. Those links are not endorsements, and I have no control over what is on the other end of them, whether they keep working, or what those sites do with your visit.

Nothing here links to a competitor's marketing as though it were authority, and nothing here is a paid or affiliate link. If a linked page has moved, the operator's current documentation is the version to trust.

What you may do with these pages

Read them, print them, and take them to your attorney — several of these pages are written to be usable in exactly that way. Quote a short passage with attribution and a link. Send a page to somebody who needs it.

What is not permitted is republishing a page or a substantial part of one as though it were yours, feeding the site wholesale into a product that reproduces it, or scraping it for republication. The text and the way it is organized belong to me. Facts do not: an operator's published policy is the operator's, and you are welcome to go and quote the source directly, which is what the citations are for.

What is not promised

Nothing here promises an outcome, and no phrasing anywhere on this site should be read as one. Content may come down where a route exists. An operator decides. What a search returns changes for reasons no one controls.

The site is provided as it is. I write it carefully and correct it when it is wrong, but I cannot promise it is complete, current on every point, or applicable to your situation, and I am not responsible for what happens if you act on it without checking the source or, where the question is legal, without a lawyer. If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands.

Changes to these terms

These terms can change. When they do, the review date in the first section changes, and the version on the site at the time you use it is the one that applies. There is no notification, for the same reason there is no mailing list.