Google announced on Wednesday that it has began rolling out a feature that allows users to request that search results containing their phone numbers and other sensitive personal information be excluded, potentially offering an extra degree of protection for private data online.
The new “Results about you” tool makes it easier for US users to request that pages including their home addresses, emails, and personal phone numbers be deleted from Google’s search results.
Google (GOOG) 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”, according to a company blog post from May, when the feature was first introduced, and updated Wednesday.
Google may opt to remove the website from its search results, but the material will remain available even if it no longer appears in search results.
“Even though removing these results doesn’t scrub your contact information from the web overall, we’re doing everything we can to safeguard your information on Search”, the business stated on Wednesday.
Google also plans to create an option for consumers to receive alerts when new search results including their contact information surface early next year.
The new choices build on Google’s earlier attempts to assist users in removing personal contact information from search results in order to protect themselves from identity theft and doxxing, or the practice of posting private information online in order to target individuals or groups.
