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If you’ve ever searched your name on Google and found your personal information listed on a website, you may have become quite concerned. You may want to keep your personal information private. You may not want a website to share your phone number, physical address, and/or email address on the Internet.
Now you can ask Google to remove websites that list your personal information from its search results.
Last week, Google announced a major expansion of its privacy policy. With this update, Google now allows people to request the removal of personal information from search results. In an effort to increase users’ control over their personal information, Google is now making it easier to delete personal information from search results.
About Google’s New Information Removal Policy
Google announced in a blog post last week that it was updating its information removal policy to let anyone request the removal of websites that contain personal information from Google’s search results. Previously, people could request the removal from search results of websites that contain personal financial information, such as credit card or bank account numbers, or personal information if there was evidence of harassment or doxing.
According to Michelle Chang, Global Policy Lead for Search at Google, the policy was updated because,
“The availability of personal contact information online can be jarring — and it can be used in harmful ways, including for unwanted direct contact or even physical harm. And people have given us feedback that they would like the ability to remove this type of information from Search in some cases.”
Information that You Can Request Be Removed from Google Search Results
Before the expansion to the removal policy was announced last week, you could (and still can now) request websites containing this information be removed from Google search results:
- Confidential government identification numbers such as U.S. Social Security Numbers,
- Argentine Single Tax Identification Number, Brazil Cadastro de pessoas Físicas, Korea Resident Registration Number, China Resident Identity Card, etc.
- Bank account numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Images of handwritten signatures
- Highly personal, restricted, and official records, such as medical records
With the new Google Search Removal Request Policy, you can now request removal from search results of websites that contain this personal information:
- Images of identification documents
- Personal contact information (physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses)
- Confidential login credentials
How to Request Removal of a Website with Your Personal Information from Google Search Results
To submit a request to Google for the removal of a website with your personal information from its search results, go to the Google Support Page –Request to remove your personal information on Google. Fill out the form, giving Google the URL of the website with your personal information. You’ll also need to answer questions about the personal information contained on that website and indicate whether you’ve contacted the owner of the website.
According to Google, “When we receive 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. We’ll also evaluate if the content appears as part of the public record on the sites of government or official sources. In such cases, we won’t make removals.”
What Else You Need to Know
Google cautions that the removal of personal information from Google search results does not remove the information from the Internet. The company explains, “It’s important to remember that removing content from Google Search won’t remove it from the internet.”
If Google approves your request, the information will still appear on the Internet. So someone searching a different search term may still find your personal information on the website. Or someone searching your name on a different search engine could find the website with your personal information.
The most effective way to remove your personal information from a website is for the owner of the website to delete the information. So in addition to requesting that Google remove the website with your personal information from its search results, you should also contact the owner of the website to request that your personal information be deleted.
Google offers a helpful support page with suggestions about how to contact the owner of a website: Google Support Page — Contact a site’s webmaster.
Your Thoughts
Do you like that Google expanded its criteria for asking for the removal of a website with personal information from search results? Have you ever requested that Google remove a website with personal information from its search results? Have you ever contacted a website owner requesting that your personal information be removed?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
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*Search image (edited) from Shutterstock via PicMonkey Pro
Hi Carolyn,
This is news to me and I am sure its a helpful hint. We do tend to see our personal information landing up on several websites. A one time clean-up would be really helpful.
Hi Praveen, Yes, it can be creepy to see your personal information on a website. We can contact the website owner, but this change from Google gives us another tool in case the website owner isn’t responsive to our request.
Hi Carolyn,
Thank you for writing about this new Google function. Yes, I do like that Google has expanded their criteria & is offering this new function to remover personal information. In the last few years I have been on the receiving end of a lot of spam phone calls and I realized that my phone number was improperly published in search results. I had to ask the websites individually to remove the information and this new function could have potentially saved me a lot of time.
Best,
Evan
Hi Evan, That’s great you took action to remove your phone number from websites. I hope that helped reduce the number of pesky spam calls you receive.
You’re right, this new Google policy will help when website owners aren’t responsive to requests such as yours. They will be penalized in Google searches, and no website owners want that!