Contact details on a website

opinionneeded

Would appreciate people's opinion on the following. I used to be self employed a number of years ago. I asked a well known institute to include my details on the relevant webpage they had relating to my field of work. When I ceased to be self employed I asked them to remove my details which they did. I was recently getting a few queries and was surprised after all these years. On further investigation I found an amateur website, set up by some American who had obviously copied and pasted the list from the other website. I made contact with this American & asked them to remove my contact details, they agreed. Again I've been contacted by someone & told they got it from that website. Contacted American again assuming they'd apologise and remove details. Instead received a reply saying they did not promise to remove it. I emailed back saying I had every right to ask for my details to be removed as I had never given them permission to post them on their website. The response was sue me b****. Tried explaining again but more insults and told not to bother them again.
In your opinion do you think a person has the right to have their contact details removed from a website and how would that person go about doing that if the website owner refuses?

Hermitage

You absolutely have a right to have your details removed. The website which originally held your data had a duty of care to you also so I would contact them and get them to also contact this other website. This well-known institute may just have more clout and if they write to them quoting the relevant breach under the data protection legislation it might be enough to scare the American website.