The company announces new change regarding personal info

Apr 27, 2022 22:15 GMT  ·  By

Google was already allowing users to request the removal of certain information from Google Search, but now the company is expanding its efforts to protect the privacy by supporting even more personal details.

Until now, Google’s efforts have been mostly focused on data that could be used for identity theft, such as credit cards, addresses, and so on, but starting today, users can request the removal of certain listings even when their names or email addresses show up.

“For many years, people have been able to request the removal of certain sensitive, personally identifiable information from Search — for example, in cases of doxxing, or information like bank account or credit card numbers that could be used for financial fraud,” Google explains.

“Under this new policy expansion, people can now request removals of additional types of information when they find it in Search results, including personal contact information like a phone number, email address, or physical address. The policy also allows for the removal of additional information that may pose a risk for identity theft, such as confidential log-in credentials, when it appears in Search results.”

Protecting your privacy

Google reminds that even if it removes some information from showing up in the results of its search engine, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going away from the web.

This is why the company says users should reach out to the hosting site directly if they want to take down certain data.

“When we receive removal requests, we will evaluate all content on the web page to ensure that we're not limiting the availability of other information that is broadly useful, for instance in news articles. We'll also evaluate if the content appears as part of the public record on the sites of government or official sources. In such cases, we won't make removals,” Google notes.