A Google search page is seen through a magnifying glass in this photo illustration taken in Berlin, August 11, 2015. Google Inc is changing its operating structure by setting up a new company called Alphabet Inc, which will include the search business and a number of other units. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski
FOR PEOPLE who regularly use multiple social media, it can be easy to forget how much of our personal information is stored across different platforms.
And if you have a unique name, searching yourself on Google can turn up worryingly specific details like your phone number or address.
Luckily, Google is making it easier to get your information removed from their Search results. After announcing the tool at their I/O conference in May, Google has begun rolling out the “Results about you” feature.
While you could already request to have some of your information removed from Search, this change makes the process a whole lot easier.
If you see a Search result that contains sensitive information about you, you will be able to make a removal request right from the Search page by clicking on “About this result”.
Google also updated its policies about removing personal details earlier this year, allowing you to remove more kinds of information and not having to still prove that having the information available would “cause harm” in some way.
You can now easily request to get all kinds of identifying details removed, as well as media like non-consensual photos. Importantly, this doesn’t remove the information or content from the internet, and people can still access them by going to the website directly.
IOL Tech
Related Topics: