Unfortunately not, Bill. Once posted, it is impossible to update. About the best
you can do is file to expunge the posts from google groups, which is basically
and archive of usenet postings.
http://groups.google.com/intl/en/googlegroups/tour/index.html#protect
-steve

i've always been mindful of it, since there have been usenet news
archives since day one of usenet.  this is no different that
calling in to a talk show --- i would never assume that no one
that i know would be listening, and i would never assume that my
enemies might bring back old usenet posts to haunt me.

on the other hand 99% of my offensive usenet posts have been
posted under a pseudonym.  if they ever outlaw spoofing
addresses, usenet news will dry up and wither away.

I know there is a way to remove posts from google (your own anyway), but I
don't know of anyway to change your posting name. If you want, you can
remove the whole post though, name and all.

I found out about this a few years ago when I stupidly got into a really
embarrassing flame war with someone and said things I had no business
saying. I don't know what got into me...I was so horribly ashamed
afterwards. Anyway, this nice fellow on the NG told me there's a way to
remove posts if you want to and he gave me the instrux. There's actually a
place on google that tells how to do it. You have to set up a google
account, but that's easy. Then there's some tedious going back and forth and
cutting and pasting to do, but it's not especially difficult. I had to
remove a lot of posts and it took me most of an afternoon. If I ever have
the inclincation to get into a flame war again, I will remember how I spent
that afternoon and it will be a cold day in Hades before I'm that stupid
again! I feel I was very severely punished for my stupidity w/ the work I
had to do taking the posts off.

My husband, who is a stickler for absolute honesty, said he didn't like the
idea of tampering with permanent records, but google provides a way for
users to do this because the administrators realize this is something that
can come up from time to time. So I don't think removing the posts was
wrong...although, the much better route is never post anything you will
later regret!

Anyway, I don't know if it's worth it to you to remove all the posts in
which you used your real full name, but if you decide you want to and you
need some help, let me know and I can try to talk you through it. Not very
difficult, but tedious and time-consuming. Btw, I think it's wise for people
NOT to use a real full name when posting. I did hear of someone once who
used his real first and last name and mentioned in some posts where he
lived. His phone number was listed and he started getting prank phone calls
and hate mail for a while from this one creep he got into a snit with a
couple of times. He had to get the police involved and an atty. and it was a
major pain to him for a while. Things worked out OK but he was very sorry he
got into a situation like that, and obviously, it could've been much worse.
There are so many crazies out there! You can never be too careful.

Well, it's good you're not doing that anymore, and probably no one is going
to look through those old archives, so there's probably no reason to worry
about it. But just so you know...you can remove your posts from google if
it's really important to you.

~katelyn~