Key Takeaways
- Google’s ‘Results about you’ tool lets users track and remove sensitive personal details, like phone numbers and addresses, from search results.
- The tool notifies users when new personal information appears online and allows them to easily request removals or updates.
- Besides this, Google has also introduced SafeSearch Blurring to hide explicit content by default, reinforcing its push for better privacy controls.
Imagine a dream recruiter searches your name on Google, and it shows your phone number from two decades ago. Frustrating to have little control over this, right? Well, that’s about to change. Google is taking steps to give you more control over the personal information that appears in search results through its new update.
With the new ‘Results about you’ tool, you can proactively monitor what sensitive information about you is appearing in Google search results, and you can request the removal or update of that information with just a few clicks.
We’ve significantly updated and improved the tool, helping you keep track of your personal contact information in Search and alerting you when we find it, so you can get it removed – Google
Besides this, you will also be alerted when new results from the web containing your contact information pop up in Google search. Although the tool isn’t available everywhere at the moment, the company plans to slowly roll out the feature to all supported countries.
Google has really been trying to up its game when it comes to privacy. For instance, it recently announced the replacement of SMS authentication with QR codes for GMail.
‘Results about you’ is another tool in its arsenal that will help it achieve that. In addition, there have also been other privacy improvements, including a SafeSearch Blurring setting that blurs out any explicit content by default whenever it appears in search results.
How to Use the New Google Privacy Feature
To use this tool, you need to first input personal data, like your name, address, and phone number. Google will scan this data and notify you as soon as a match is found.
Anything that you wish to get removed from the search results can be requested for removal by clicking on the three-dot menu next to the results and selecting the ‘remove this result’ option.
There will be three options to choose from:
- First is the straightforward personal information removal, which can be selected for removing PII or doxxing content.
- The second option is flagging illegal content like copyright infringement.
- The last one is a new feature for situations when the user has already submitted an update on the data, but search results haven’t reflected those changes yet. When you select the third option, aka the refresh option, Google will be prompted to recrawl the website and update its information.
It’s worth noting that this feature has actually been around for quite some time now, but it was only accessible through the Google app.
On the mobile web and desktop, it was tucked away in the history settings that most users didn’t even know about. By making it more visible and adding a healthy dash of new updates, users will certainly feel more in control of their information.
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