{"id":2256,"date":"2022-10-26T05:02:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T12:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2023-09-27T13:07:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T20:07:44","slug":"google-simplifies-removing-personal-info-from-search-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/google-simplifies-removing-personal-info-from-search-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Google simplifies removing personal info from search results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ever Googled your name and found yourself uncomfortable with the breadth of personal information you\u2019ve found in the results pages? 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a common feeling, especially with our lives becoming ever more digital. One of the consequences of increased connectivity can be losing autonomy over personal data. And it\u2019s not just discomfort that can result from having these kinds of details online. Privacy is crucial to staying safe online. Having private data readily available puts people at risk of threats like online harassment such as doxxing. According to SafeHome<\/a>, 21% of Americans (around 43 million people) have experienced doxxing of some kind. 
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Fortunately, Google\u2019s new \u2018results about you\u2019 tool aims to give you more control of your online presence and protect<\/a> yourself from potential bad actors. It allows anyone to easily request the removal of personal details like their phone number, home address, or email address from Google search results. This tool can be found both in Google\u2019s search site and the Google app for Android and iPhone, and is only available for US users currently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How it works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whether you\u2019re using the Google app or website, you can begin by searching your name. Once the results appear, you can tap the icon menu next to any results that feature personal information about you. Tap the \u201cRemove result\u201d button that appears, and you\u2019ll be guided through the rest. 
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To check the status of your removal requests, open the menu by clicking on your profile picture. Then, click on the \u201cResults about you\u201d button to see what requests are in progress or approved. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google notes<\/a> that making a request is not necessarily a guarantee that the web page will be removed from search results. They will individually evaluate each request to see if it\u2019s part of a page with other information considered broadly useful, such as a news story. They also point out that removing the page from their results pages doesn\u2019t remove it from the web entirely, so if you\u2019re concerned, it would be beneficial to contact the host directly to request they remove your information from their web page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A welcome development<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google has had options for removing personal data before, but this new tool definitely simplifies things. Before, you had to find the URL, head to a separate support page, then fill out a form to submit. If you found a lot of URLs you wanted to remove, this could potentially take quite a while. There are also myriad Google policies based on the type of content you want to remove to contend with. For certain types of information, at least, this makes things easier.
A tool like this has certainly been a long time coming, but why is Google launching it now? Speaking with Gizmodo<\/a>, Danny Sullivan, Google\u2019s public liaison for Search, said that people now feel less comfortable with personal information being displayed in search results and would prefer not to have it so readily accessible. Sullivan\u2019s approach has been to try to meet that demand without removing any information that could be of public interest.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever Googled your name and found yourself uncomfortable with the breadth of personal information you\u2019ve found in the results pages?  It\u2019s a common feeling, especially with our lives becoming ever more digital. One of the consequences of increased connectivity can be losing autonomy over personal data. And it\u2019s not just discomfort that can result from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2659,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssls.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}