Finland: Google reviews, Fonecta and what cannot be removed

Finland in figures

Finnish residents have sent Google 25,066 delisting requests since 2014, and 1,708 in the last 12 months. Google delisted 51.6% of the requested URLs (Google’s own figures since 2014, Transparency Report). Google handles about 86% of searches, Bing 5.6% and Yandex 4.1%; we do not file with Yandex.

Google reviews for Finnish businesses

Restaurants, clinics, tradespeople and shops in Finland face the same review problems as elsewhere: a former employee posing as a client, a competitor, an angry message that names a staff member. We report reviews that appear to break Google’s Maps content policy and use the appeal when Google says no. See Google reviews.

A Finnish service charges €60 for a first request and up to €190 incl. VAT per case, and other agencies are said to charge €200 to €900. Our price is €20 incl. VAT per review request, €149 incl. VAT for 10. We say it plainly: Google makes the final decision.

Fonecta Finder: the operator route

Fonecta’s Finder service receives over 13 million searches a month and takes mobile subscribers’ names and numbers from the phone operators. To hide your listing, you contact your mobile operator and ask for a secret or unlisted number (Fonecta). This is your step with your operator; we tell you exactly how and handle the rest: other directories that copied the data, and Google results for your name.

Tax data: what cannot be removed

Every November, Finnish tax data becomes public. Media receive lists of people earning more than €100,000, and newspapers run “verokone” tools that let readers look up incomes. On 21 December 2022 the Supreme Administrative Court (KHO) held that taxpayers cannot object to the transfer of their tax data to the media (MTV Uutiset). In 2021 the Data Protection Ombudsman found that a newspaper’s tax tool is journalism.

So we promise nothing on tax data, and we will not take your money for it. If an old article combines your income with other private details, send it to us: the other details may be a separate question.

Other cases and the Ombudsman

• Old results for your name: delisting with Google, see Google delisting.
• Data on a site that ignores you: GDPR erasure request, see erasure at the source.
• Intimate images shared without consent: links only, see intimate images.

Finland’s data protection authority is the Data Protection Ombudsman (*Tietosuojavaltuutettu*). When a complaint is the next step, we prepare it; you sign and send it. In Finland, bar membership is not needed to give legal help, but NetClearer is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Stripe can show euros directly; The payment page shows the methods available to you. No refund once your request has been filed.