Google rolls out new feature; users can remove personal info directly in Search

The new 'Results about you' feature was introduced at the Google I/O 2022 and is now rolling out to users

September 22, 2022

Google now lets you request the removal of search results that contain personal data

Tech giant Google announces the “Results about you” tool during its annual developer conference earlier this year, is now rolling out to some users, reports 9to5Google.
Google has started to roll out a new privacy feature that will allow people to directly make a request to remove Search results that contain their personal information.

With this new tool, if you find your personal information like your home address, email address, phone number, or any other information on Google Search, just click on the three-dot overflow menu that appears in the top-right corner of each result. The existing ‘About this Result’ panel opens with a new “Remove result” option appearing at the bottom of your screen, the report mentioned.

Currently, to remove any personally identifiable information (PII), you need to go to a Google Support page and fill out a form containing the URL you wanted to be removed from the search results.

Now, you can also monitor the progress of removal from the ‘Results about you’ tool. In addition to an “All requests” feed, you have filters like “In progress” and “Approved.”

This page also lets you make a new request with a walkthrough that involves a “Why would you like to remove this result?” step.

Google earlier said that when it receives 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”.

Removing contact information from Google Search doesn’t remove it from the web, “which is why you may wish to contact the hosting site directly if you’re comfortable doing so”.

Earlier this year, Google updated its policies around removing personally identifying information.

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