Erase Private Data Tag

[RunDontStop]

This is difficult to explain. I have a need for this.
Assume you have a folder full of files and subfolders. I route top level files to analyze. Subfolder files go elsewhere.
As an example I look at top level files and tag private data, something very simple such as:
ORIENTATION=LANDSCAPE
Afterwards I reassemble the original folder group and it has that private data tag, which is good, I use "Merge Metadata=Yes", because I want the whole job to have that tag.
After further processing I might have a need to send the group subfolders back through the whole process again, as new jobs of their own. So I dismantle and I do just that, reroute the subfolders to an earlier point in the flow, to be processed separately.
For these new "sub jobs" I end up doing the same thing: top level files go for analysis, subfolder files do not.
For this new sub job I might end up with new private data:
ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT
And then I resemble this sub job group in much the same as the original larger group it was once a part of.
My problem is that when regrouped it very well might hang on to the old Private Data:
ORIENTATION=LANDSCAPE
when in fact for this new "sub job" this old tag value is not true anymore.
I understand why this happens. In the original regroup, I merged metadata. So in the new sub job, if certain files do not get the tag
ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT
they of course retain the original LANDSCAPE tag, even though they aren't supposed to be tagged at all.
So I thought about "erasing" the tag, before rerouting the sub job back through. I don't want to do
ORIENTATION=UNKNOWN
Because the word "UNKNOWN" constitutes a valid tag of its own, likely to be retained and not help matters at all.
So my question is, does this:
ORIENTATION=
effectively "erase" the tag, preparing it for a new result for the new sub job?
I have done a few simple tests and it seems like this is true, having a blank entry for the tag makes it like it was never tagged in the first place.

[laurentd]

I have checked this using the Private Data Extractor app, which can export an xml or attach a dataset with all the job's private data, and I can confirm:
ORIENTATION=
effectively "erases" the tag.

[RunDontStop]

This is good news and thank you for confirming.