Google: the new function to hide your personal data from searches

With the emergence of the internet and, above all, with the dominance of Google as the main search engine on the network, the privacy of personal information has become a priority issue for users.

That’s why the announcement, released in recent days, that Google has created a new form that makes it possible to more easily eliminate personal data from searches performed daily drew attention.

“The availability of personal information online can be disconcerting,” Michelle Chang, head of Google’s global search policy, said in a text on the organization’s website.

Chang made it clear that misuse of the data could result in “unwanted direct contact or even physical harm.”

The update dramatically reduces Google’s requirements to remove data from search results.

Previously, you could request the deletion of personal and financial information only in cases of potential identity theft or threat to physical integrity.

Now, with the new tool, Google points out that the user can request the deletion of personal information even if there is no clear risk.

This takes into account that 63,000 searches are performed on the Google search engine per second, which translates into 5.6 billion daily searches.

How is the new form

On the company blog, Chang explains that anyone can submit a data deletion request.

The ideal is to have a series of internet links or URLs where the information to be deleted is located.

Then it is necessary to fill this form here. In it, the user is asked to specify whether to exclude information from a specific Google search or from a website.

According to the company, it would also be ideal to include screenshots in the request where the information to be removed can be seen.

“Upon receiving the request, we will evaluate the entire content of the website included in the form, primarily to ensure that by deleting this information, we do not affect useful content, such as an article or news,” he explains.

For this reason, the portal clarifies that some changes cannot be completed.

“If the content appears on public record sites or belongs to a government, in those cases we can’t do anything,” he added.

Among the modifications that the form included in this update, it is possible to delete passwords that are in password management applications.

In Latin America, the countries most affected by identity and data theft, many of them due to information available on the internet, are Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.