Your personal details on the internet can make you susceptible to frauds and cyber scams. Today, such scamsters can perform tricks by knowing just a few of your personal details and you might end up losing your hard-earned money. Even a simple Google search could reveal your mobile number, address, or email address to strangers.
Not only does this expose you to unwanted calls, spams, you might even face risks like identity theft. However, you can easily check and remove your personal information lying on the internet, using Google’s built-in privacy safeguard called ‘Results about you’ tool. Using this feature, you can find out if your personal info, like your home address, phone number, or email address shows up in search results.
If found, you can request their removal directly from Google’s index. Google’s ‘Results about you’ toll scans the web, alerts you to matches, and helps you hide sensitive data.
How to use Google’s ‘Results about you’ tool to remove personal info
This simple Google tool can decrease the chances of strangers coming across your private information lying on the internet. However, you must know that the ‘Results about you’ feature does not erase the data from the original website, for which you would need to contact the site owner.
Here’s how to remove your personal details from Google search:
Step 1: Find ‘Results about you’
-Open the Google app and log in with your email.
-To open the ‘Menu’, click your Profile picture or initial.
-From the ‘Menu’, select ‘Results about you’.
If using it from mobile web or desktop:
Go to Results about you, select Get started or Settings. Enter your name and the personal info that you want to find in search results.
Tip: You can also enter these types of contact info in the form: Nickname, Maiden name, Multiple personal phone numbers, Multiple home addresses, Multiple email addresses
-Set up notifications.
If Google finds results with your personal info, you can select to receive email notifications. If you have notifications on, you’ll receive a notification to let you know if the results match your info. After that, you’ll receive a new notification when new results are found that match your personal info.
Step 2: Review results about you
If you have notifications on, you’ll get a notification within a few hours to let you know if any search results matched your name and personal info.
You can also check directly from the ‘Results about you’ page.
Step 3: Request removal of results about you
If you see a result that you’d rather keep private, you can request to remove it from search results.
To request removal of a single result, select the result to expand and then Request to remove.
If you don’t want to initiate a removal, you can also choose ‘Mark as reviewed’.
Google ‘Results about you’ tool: What if your removal request is denied?
According to Google blog, if your request is denied, you’ll get an email notification. On the ‘Results about you’ page, you’ll find the reason why your request wasn’t approved.
Moreover, if you come across your personal info in a search result that redirects you to a web page with a paywall, you can still request to remove it.
If you received a notification about the result from Google, you can request to remove it by clicking on the notification. And if you found it yourself on the search results page, you can proceed by submitting your request through this detailed removal request form – https://support.google.com/websearch/contact/content_removal_form?sjid=10665002918048474239-NC.
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