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Removing your record from The Georgia Gazette

Site guide · thegeorgiagazette.com · checked 2026-08-25

The Georgia Gazette will never accept payment for removal, says so twice on its own site, and operates a Second Chance Policy that considers removal for convictions. That last part makes it genuinely unusual: every other site in this category stops at expunged, dismissed, sealed or not guilty. This one has a published route for the people those four words leave out.

It is also the site Georgia legislators named when they tried to restrict mugshot publication, and a Fulton County judge is currently weighing an anti-SLAPP motion in a suit brought over one of its listings.

What this site is

• Founded January 2020 and run by Matt Sayle through The Georgia Gazette LLC, Richmond Hill, Georgia — a rare thing in this category, an operator who is named and reachable. Its BBB profile lists a business start date of 10 January 2020 under the category “Searchers of Records”. Trademarks are held by Abatis Media, LLC, which the site credits for technical support.
• It claims a team of nearly 30 and more than 20 million monthly page views, across 80 Georgia counties. Record URLs run /{county}/{article-slug}/.
• A 2023 WSB-TV investigation, headlined with a subject calling it “100% clickbait”, reported that the listed business address was a smoothie shop. Sayle's response to that investigation was that staff remove dozens of qualified bookings daily and that the Second Chance policy removes more “regardless of our legal requirement to do so.”
• It presents itself as a news organisation — its trademark filings are for news services — which matters, because Georgia's removal statute carries an exception for newspapers and periodicals. That is the argument it would have available if pushed.
• Georgia legislators tried to constrain this category in 2024 with HB 882 and HB 930, which would have restricted sheriffs from posting mugshots before conviction and imposed $500-a-day fines. Both stalled in subcommittee. The Gazette was named as the example driving the bill.

How removal actually works

The ordinary route

thegeorgiagazette.com/removal-request/. The site cites O.C.G.A. §35-1-19 and §10-1-393.5 as its legal basis and commits to acting within 30 days of receipt.

The Second Chance route

A separate form, for cases the ordinary route does not reach. Published 26 April 2023 and last revised 20 July 2026.

Second Chance thresholds

Non-violent misdemeanours are eligible once at least a year has passed since booking. DUI requires two years from arrest. Felony and violent charges need a minimum of two years and are reviewed case by case.

What it weighs

Severity of the offence, time elapsed, the final outcome and sentence with documentation, criminal history — repeat offenders are excluded — and whether the harm of publication outweighs public interest.

The fee

There is none, and the site states that accepting one is “strictly prohibited”.

What the removal industry charges for this site

Three removal companies publish Georgia Gazette pages. None quotes a price.

There is no verified evidence this site has ever charged. Its own two policy pages say it will never ask for or accept compensation, and the 2023 television investigation — which was not friendly to it — reported the same.

Under Georgia's Fair Business Practices Act, charging you would itself be the violation. So would refusing a qualifying request.

Where Google comes into it

Not eligible under the exploitative-removal policy, because no payment is demanded. Georgia's own statute is the stronger lever: per the Georgia Attorney General's consumer guidance, O.C.G.A. §10-1-393.5 requires a website to remove a booking photograph at no charge within 30 days of a written request in eight qualifying circumstances — record restriction, pre-charge dismissal, expired limitations, prosecutor dismissal, two grand jury no-bills, post-indictment dismissal or nolle prosequi, successful drug-court probation, and acquittal. The request must go by certified mail or statutory overnight delivery and must state your name, date of birth, date of arrest and arresting agency. There is a news-media exception, and this site presents itself as news.

What we would charge you for, and what we would not

• If one of the eight statutory circumstances fits you, send the certified letter yourself. Get the four required details right — name, date of birth, date of arrest, arresting agency — because a letter missing one of them is a letter they can ignore.
• If you were convicted, this is one of the few sites in the country where asking is not futile. The Second Chance criteria are published; a request that addresses them point by point, with the disposition documented, is a request that can be granted.
• Where we are worth paying: making the Second Chance case well, and handling the copies. Georgia bookings are syndicated widely, and this site's own removal does nothing about the others.

Try the free route first

Google removes your phone number, home address, email and — since February 2026 — government ID numbers at no cost through its own tool. More than 10 million people have used it. It does not cover arrest records, so it will not touch the listing on this page, but it is free and worth running before you pay anyone for anything.

Open Google’s Results about you tool

Sources

• The Georgia Gazette — Second Chance Policy
• The Georgia Gazette — removal request
• Georgia Attorney General — mugshot websites guidance
• O.C.G.A. §35-1-19
• WSB-TV 2 Investigates, 6 July 2023
• Georgia Recorder — HB 882 and HB 930 stall, 26 February 2024

Every claim on this page was checked against these sources on 2026-08-25. Sites in this category change without notice. If you find something here that is no longer true, tell us and we will correct it.