Removing phone numbers, emails, and physical addresses from Google Search results is now a possibility.
Remove your personal info from Google search results
Google’s new policy is aiming to prevent the exploitation of personal information for nefarious reasons such as stalking in person or identity theft. With this, users can request the removal of their personal information from Google search results. “As the internet evolves—with information appearing in unexpected places and being utilized in novel ways,” stated Michelle Chang. Chang is the firm’s global policy head for search. “Our policies and protections must adapt as well,” she added.
As per reports, the Wednesday notification goes over “personal contact info”. This includes email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, and other personally identifiable information. Additionally, you can request the removal of your login credentials from the results. This will help in protecting users from identity theft and hacking. You can initiate a removal request by going to Google’s help page on the topic, you’ll be asked for the URL where the personally identifiable information is stored. The form allows users to submit up to 1,000 URLs.
More on the privacy policy
“When we receive removal requests, we’ll assess all content on the web page to make sure we’re not limiting the availability of other information that’s widely helpful, such as news items,” stated the platform. “We’ll also look to see if the content is part of the public record on government or official sources’ websites,” it added. The URL carrying personal information will not be present in the search results. Hence, it will eliminate the URL of web searchers that contain your name in other instances. It is important to know that Google is capable of preventing an item from showing up in search results. However, the content will keep existing on the provider’s servers. Hence, in such situations, users might have to first request the provider to remove the information.