New Delhi: Google on Thursday said that starting early next year, it will notify users if their personal information like phone number, email and home address appear in Search results.
The 'Results about you' tool will make it easier to make removal requests of personal information from Google Search, said the company.
With this new tool, if the user finds their personal information like home address, email address, phone number or any other information on Google Search, they can click on the three-dot overflow menu that appears in the top-right corner of each result.
"Early next year, you'll also be able to opt into alerts if new results appear with personally identifying information, so you can quickly request their removal from Google Search," said the tech giant.
Apart from the new tool, the removal requests can also be done globally by anyone using Google's form-based system. The feature has already started appearing for some search users.
The tool will help against Doxing
The service has arrived exactly at a time when the threats associated with doxing is under much dicsussion. Doxing is a way to bully the user by disclosing their personal information publicly without their prior permission. The act is considered a type of cyberbullying, used to silence someone.
However, it is different from traditional online trolling, where bad actors can simply be blocked and reported. Doxing can easily cause major problems to users as their home addresses and contact information is exposed.
A 2017 Pew Internet study reveals that there is a slight increase in online harassment, including doxing, in comparison of its prior review in 2014, as some 41% of US adults have been facing harassment.
“Even though removing these results doesn’t completely clean your contact information from the overall web, the google is doing everything to safeguard information of users on Google Search,” said Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison for Search.
Currently, to remove any personal identifiable information (PII), the user need to go to a Google Support page and fill out a form containing the URL he or she wanted to be removed from the search results. 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.
