THAT IS NOT MY NAME.THIS IS ME!

"You throw

your hands up

in the air!

Could this

be a

nightmare?"

To my dismay, I just experienced the words in my poem 'Be the difference' ©️2025 Sophia Asmah.

I am exhausted but relieved and currently I am getting my ‘zen’ back.

15^th July 2025, in the evening I decided to do a Google search on one of my books. What prompted this was a book review I received unsolicited in my DM, X (formerly Twitter). It was a beautiful review, and I even sought the permission of the person to share it publicly. I am yet to share that review.

All my life I have always had occasions when that still small voice speaks/prompts me to do something, and I have listened, and it has always turned out to be consequential. But trust me, nothing on this earth prepared me for what was ahead.

Back to my Google search. I saw a different name showing as the author for my book on Google. What?! I had to look again and again. It was still showing another person’s name. I could not believe my eyes.

I decided to google search all my books. That same name kept coming up. What?! Then I typed my own name in the search bar and that other name appeared with not my books being attributed to them but literally all my creative works; deigns, artwork etc. What?! What was going on?! I could have passed out from the shock. All my years of work and just like that someone else was stealing all that as theirs?

A thousand and one questions were rummaging in my mind. I knew that this had to be a recent development because I do searches on my name and creative works often. Then I comforted myself knowing that I am the copyright owner of all my published works, including my books, and I also have my copyright certificates in my possession.

I took screenshots of everything. Then I contacted Google for the first time using the ‘send feedback’ button. And the roller coaster started.

I got an email stating that I have to own the knowledge panel to be able to give feedback on it. And to own the knowledge panel I have to be verified on Google.

The instructions to be verified, included taking a selfie while holding up my identification document next to my face. So, that is the genesis of this selfie. I uploaded the requisite picture to Google and took some more selfies.

By that time, it was past midnight, so I tried to sleep, but I wasn’t able to sleep knowing that everything which I had created was being attributed to someone else. Complete nightmare!

I got an email from Google on 16^th July 2025 stating that my identity could not be verified and that could be for two reasons; either the URL of the knowledge panel did not exist or there was insufficient information to verify my identity. I had the option to submit the request again. I was wondering which of the two reasons was causing the problem. I submitted the request again and got the same reply back.

In the meantime, I tried contacting Google through other means/e-forms including “make a legal removal request" of information.

Then I got an email from a person stating that the URL I provided was not for a knowledge panel that is why my verification was not going through. At least that was a welcome clarification. However, that did not bring me any closer to solving the copyright violations and my identity misrepresentation.

I went back to the information on Google search and noticed that the source of all the incorrect information in relation to my books was ‘Google Books. But as to how all my creative works, including my books were being attributed to someone else, when I searched my name in Google was still a mystery. 

I stated this in an email to the person at Google. In their reply they provided me with a link to Google Bools to submit my concerns, which I did.

All this back and forth had taken us to 18^th Jully 2025, three days after I had found out those outrageous anomalies.

I did not get any response from the Google Book team on the 19^th of July 2025, so I sent an email to the person I had been dealing with. By the end of the day, I just said ‘Dear God, please take care of this for me.’ I was just emotionally exhausted with all the attempts I had made and the fact that there was still no resolution.

On 20^th July 2025 I received an email from the person at Google stating that they are sure the Google Books team would get in touch with me.

I decided to do the searches again that morning and lo and behold to my pleasant surprise and relief my name, Sophia Asmah was showing when I entered my name and my books in the search bar. I said, ‘Thank You God.’

Later on, I got an email from Google Books, their first email to me, stating that if I still felt there were copyright violations I should fill in the legal request form. I was not pleased with their email especially since I knew by then that the information had been corrected so they were being disingenuous. An apology stating that the corrections had been affected would have been more forthcoming.

I still have a lot of unanswered questions for Google Books because under no circumstance should anyone be able to attribute books to themselves which they had not written and or published if accurate checks had been carried out.

Before I forget I also checked searches on Bing and Yahoo, which are the other two top search engine, in relation to my name and my books and the information there is accurate, So, this was entirely a Google issue.

Anyway, it has been corrected, the information is accurate, and life goes on.

I cannot change what has occurred in the past, so I choose to look forward, taking along with me, the lessons learned.

These include the following:

1.      Obtain copyright certificates for all your works.

2.      Do frequent checks on your name and your works on various search engines.

3.      Don’t give up until issues are resolved.

There was a case of identity misrepresentation and copyright violations.

Also, I chose not to disclose that name, since I still have unanswered questions as to how this debacle occurred.

But definitely, that is not my name. This is me, Sophia Asmah!

Author. Poet. Artist. Designer. Publisher. Graphic designer.