Lumen (LumenDatabase.org) was previously knows as and carried the moniker “ChillingEffects.org” – “The Lumen database collects and analyzes legal complaints and requests for removal of online materials, helping Internet users to know their rights and understand the law. These data enable us to study the prevalence of legal threats and let Internet users see the source of content removals.” – (As Stated On Their Page) – Lumen is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society which is actually at Harvard University. Lumen is a 3r party “research” project that analysis and researches mostly online content removal requests. The lumendatabase.org (ChillingEffects.org) is primarily known for their roll in housing/archiving/displaying DMCA copyright takedown notices and other notices in an effort to create a transparent record of these requests. Lumen is not in charge of deciding what is actually removed and as for Google link removal it is up to Google’s legal department to decide what the search engine removes.
Here is a snippet from Google’s “Legal Removal” page about Lumen: “As part of our efforts to remain transparent, a copy of each legal notice we receive may be sent to the Lumen project for publication and annotation. Lumen is a joint project among U.S. law schools that seeks to provide resources about free speech online and intellectual property law. It’s also a database of requests to remove content from the internet. Lumen will redact the submitter’s personal contact information (i.e. phone number, e-mail and address).”
Sources: Google.com, LumenDatabase.org
