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Websites that charge you to remove posts about you: is it legal?

Some sites publish damaging posts and then offer to take them down for a fee. California bans this for mugshots. For everything else, the law is still catching up.

Updated October 29, 2026. General information about California and federal law, not legal advice.

The short answer. California already makes it illegal to charge people to remove booking photos. There is no general ban covering other content yet. A demand for money to remove damaging claims can be extortion, and Google will remove pages from sites with exploitative removal practices when you ask.

How the business works

The pattern is familiar. Someone posts accusations about you on a site that makes it easy to post anonymously and hard to get anything removed. The post ranks for your name. Then you are offered a way out: an "arbitration" fee, a "verified response" service, a reputation firm, or a direct price to take it down. Sometimes the same people run both the site and the removal service.

What California law already says

California Civil Code section 1798.91.1 makes it unlawful to require payment to remove or correct a booking photograph from a website. Florida has a similar rule (Fla. Stat. § 901.43). These laws show that states can regulate a site's own conduct in charging for removal, without depending on whether the content is true.

No California law yet applies that rule to accusations, reviews or exposure posts about a person. That is the gap our proposal addresses.

When a demand can be extortion

Under California Penal Code section 518, extortion includes obtaining property from someone with their consent induced by the wrongful use of fear. Section 519 says that fear can be created by a threat to expose a person to disgrace, to accuse them of a crime, or to expose a secret. A message that says, in effect, "pay or this stays up" or "pay or we post more" may fall within those sections.

If you receive a demand:

  • Do not pay, and do not negotiate on your own.
  • Save the full message, the sender details, payment instructions and the pages involved.
  • Report it to local police and to the FBI at ic3.gov.
  • Tell your lawyer, if you have one.

Getting the pages out of search results

Google's policy on sites with exploitative removal practices allows you to request removal of pages about you from sites that charge for removal. Start at Google's removal troubleshooter and include evidence of the fee. More routes are in our guide to removing content from Google.

Why paying rarely ends it

  • Removal may be temporary, or the post may reappear on a mirror or sister site.
  • Paying can mark you as someone who pays.
  • Reputation firms tied to these sites may charge recurring fees.
  • It does nothing about the person who wrote the post in the first place.

What we are asking California to do

Our proposal extends California's mugshot rule to all content: no website may charge a person to remove or correct content about them. Because it regulates the site's own fee practice rather than the speech, it is designed to work within Section 230 and the First Amendment.

Common questions

Should I pay to have a post removed?

Think carefully. Paying does not guarantee the content stays down, can mark you as willing to pay, and copies may appear on other sites. Document the demand and use the removal routes that do not require payment first.

Is it extortion if a site asks me to pay to remove a post?

It can be. California Penal Code sections 518 and 519 define extortion to include obtaining money through a threat to expose a person to disgrace or to accuse them of a crime. Whether a particular demand qualifies depends on the facts, so report it to police and keep the evidence.

Does Google remove pay to remove sites from search?

Google has a policy allowing people to request removal of pages about them from sites with exploitative removal practices, meaning sites that require payment to remove content. Keep a record of the fee demand.

This guide explains the law in general terms and may not fit your situation. Deadlines in these cases are short, so talk to a California lawyer about your facts. The State Bar of California certifies lawyer referral services.