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Shelley Engels felt a hot flush of panic when she saw the Google search results.

The mother of two teenagers had typed her own name into the search engine to confirm that her work email address had been changed to her maiden name on her employer’s website. She was shocked to see a link to a legal judgment outlining the resolution of a tense dispute with her ex-husband.

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Earlier decisions in their case had listed the two by their initials only, but this document contained their full names, their incomes for the previous four years, the full names and birth dates of their children and potentially embarrassing details of their personal lives. What’s more, this judgment cropped up in a Google search, while documents published on the Canadian website that publishes most court decisions in this country are not indexed by the search engine and don’t show up in result lists.

As she scanned the judgment Ms. Engels realized it was posted on a foreign website that was asking for money – payment by credit card or PayPal happily accepted – in exchange for the removal of personal details. A prominent sidebar on Globe24h.com said it would edit out sensitive personal data for free but that would take up to 180 days and removal from Google’s search index could take up to a year. On the other hand, “express” service of less than 96 hours could be arranged for just 19 euros, and the fastest solution would scrub the personal information within 12 hours for 129 euros or almost $200.