People in the U.S. will soon be able to use Google’s new “Results AboutYou” feature, which helps users remove sensitive personal information from the company’s search results. Next year, Results About You will allow users to receive notifications when new personal information about them appears in search results, giving them the ability to request removal even more quickly.
Google first teased the feature in May and said it would officially launch it at its Search On 22 event, which took place yesterday, September 28. With Results About You, users . can request the removal of personally identifiable information with just a few clicks . This information includes physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses
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According to Danny Sullivan , the company knows that people prefer not to have their personal information available to just anyone.
Before Results About You, it wasn't easy for users the removal of their personal information from Googlebecause the company has very limited policies for removal.
“Basically, if something isn’t spam or illegal—like child sexual abuse content—we tend to leave it there and trust our ranking system to try to show the most useful stuff,” Sullivan said. He added: “But this was a case where we said there’s enough interest in this kind of thing that we think those concerns can be addressed without affecting search results.”
It's very easy to use Results About You, as it's available in the Google App. So, US users can open the app, tap their profile picture, and select Results About You from the drop-down menu. If you're using Safari, you can access Results About You on individual search results by clicking the three dots.
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Google told Gizmodo that once Results About You is fully rolled out, it will be available on Android, iOS, and the web . Some Android users already received the feature last week.
As mentioned above, requesting content removal from Google has been a challenge until now, with company policies that can make it difficult for users to understand where to go and what process to follow. That’s something Results About You aims to change, Sullivan said. Results About You asks what kind of content you want to report for removal. Is it personal contact information or old information? Or is it something more serious, perhaps illegal? This allows Google to match the type of information you report with its policy for removing that content.
As for how long it takes for Google to review takedown requests, which will be analyzed by both humans and automated systems, Sullivan told Gizmodo that it takes a few days. If a request is denied, there will be an appeal process.
With Results About You, the company wants to show that people can now easily request the removal of personal information from Google search results.
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“If there’s something you feel uncomfortable about yourself while searching, you have a new way to report it and maybe get it removed,” Sullivan said.
The service comes at a time when there has been much discussion about the threats associated with doxing – a way of threatening or harassing someone by publicly disclosing their personal information without their permission. This is considered a form of cyberbullying and is quite dangerous for victims as it exposes very sensitive information, such as home addresses.
Source: gizmodo.com
