th said:
My concern wasnt so much with new visitors, but with the fact that I've maligned people and companies I've worked for and bought stuff from and would probably rather that didnt crop up in a standard google search. My liability insurance provider probably would like that too.
Google returns about 62,800,000 hits for "th" and 25,800 for your name. "Nords" only got 87,300 hits and seven for my name. Hey, what would Dubya say? "Bring it on!"?
Are you implying that they can't handle the truth or that you wish that you hadn't spoken in a manner so unadorned with tact? It can't be a concern that you wouldn't be able to get a job or a purchase order from them again...
I can understand wishing that sort of thing remains a secret, but it's not necessarily a disaster that it gets out. (Although I understand that many people wish they'd deleted their Usenet rants AFTER Google archived them.) It's only libel/slander if it's NOT proved true, right? You may lose a few invitations to country club birthday parties but if these people were still good (or at least respected) friends then there wouldn't have been any (possibly Freudian) urges to post in the first place.
Just like billions of others, once I e-mailed my boss concerning a fellow department head's seeming lack of cooperation with doing things my way. In the e-mail I used the phrase "or else I'll ram it down her throat" which could have been interpreted in a wide variety of unfortunate ways. A microsecond after I pressed the "Send" button I realized that I'd mistakenly ("Freudianly"?) used the "Reply All" feature instead of to just my boss. I never heard a word from anyone (except the routine obligatory "There, there, Nords, try to get along nicely with others" from the boss) but the fellow DH's behavior problems cleared right up. (No sexual harassment complaints, either.) My point is that a little unvarnished truth overheard by naked emperors while you're clearly talking in presumed confidence to others isn't always a bad thing.
Besides, from the way you describe them, I doubt they'd be interested in doing a Google search on the subject anyway. And you know that GE isn't agonizing over how to improve their refrigeration quality numbers, either...
You can always tell them that I said it.