How to remove a leak from Google, step by step.

Finding your content on a leak site is infuriating and overwhelming. The good news: the law is on your side. Your content is your own work, you hold the copyright to it, and whoever publishes it without permission is required to take it down once properly notified.

This guide explains how to do it yourself. It takes time, but it works.

1. Gather the evidence

Before writing to anyone, save all of this:

• The exact link to every page where your content appears, not just the site’s home page.
• Screenshots with the date and address visible.
• The link to your original post, to prove the content is yours.

Keep it all in one folder. You’ll need it at every step.

2. Notify the site

Look on the site for a “DMCA”, “Copyright”, “Abuse” or “Contact” page. Almost all of them have one, even if it’s hidden in the footer.

Your notice must include:

1. Which content is yours and where the original is.
2. The exact links where it has been posted.
3. A statement that you have not given permission and are acting in good faith.
4. Your contact details. You can use your stage name and an email address that doesn’t identify you.

3. If it doesn’t respond, notify its host

Every website lives on someone’s server. If the site ignores you, write to its hosting provider.

• To find out who hosts a site, look up its domain on any “whois” lookup service. It shows the provider and, often, its abuse email.
• If the site uses Cloudflare, Cloudflare isn’t the host, but it has an abuse form that forwards your notice to the real provider.

4. Ask Google to remove it from the results

Even if the site deletes nothing, you can get it to stop showing up when someone searches your name. For most fans, what isn’t on Google doesn’t exist.

1. Go to Google’s legal help centre (support.google.com/legal) and choose the copyright removal form.
2. Describe your work and paste the link to your original post.
3. Paste the links to the pages you want removed, one per line.
4. Submit it and keep the reference number you’re given.

Bing has its own copyright infringement form. It’s worth sending that too.

5. Telegram

In the app, open the channel or message, tap “Report” and choose copyright. For cases with many messages, Telegram has an email address for copyright notices: dmca@telegram.org. Include links to every message and proof that the content is yours.

Telegram takes longer than a normal website. If nothing has happened after a few weeks, send it again.

6. If it’s serious

If someone asks you for money in exchange for not posting, if the person who shared it is an ex-partner, or if there are images you never wanted anyone to see, it’s not just a copyright problem. Sharing intimate images without consent is a crime in Spain (Article 197.7 of the Criminal Code) and in many other countries. Keep all the evidence, don’t pay, and report it to the police.

7. When it comes back

The most frustrating part is that it often gets uploaded again, under another name or on another site. That’s why it’s worth checking your name every few days with several searches: “your_username leaked”, “your_username pack”, “your_username mega”, “your_username telegram”…