Have you ever had the audacity to Google your name? Nope ? However, the results obtained may surprise you (both in the classic search and on Google images). Over the years, your online presence can indeed generate a large amount of personal information about you, some of which you would probably like to keep to yourself.
If the search engine already allowed to do delete, at your request, certain results concerning you, the procedure to follow is quite tedious. You must first fill out the dedicated form, and then respond to the various justification emails sent by the search engine. Who does not hesitate to ask you to justify again, sometimes several times, the reasons which lead you to think that these results can harm you.
But the Mountain View company has obviously finally realized that it “is important to have control over how your sensitive and personally identifiable information can be found”. As such, Google says it updated its policy “to help people take more control of their online presence in Search.”
From now on, users who find sensitive information in the search results allowing them to be identified will be able to ask Google to delete them. This concerns in particular contact information such as postal addresses, e-mail addresses or telephone numbers. The search engine also indicates that it will be possible to request the deletion of other information as soon as it could be used to usurp your identity.
By offering the possibility of having your personal details removed from search results, Google also hopes to limit the risk of harassment, as can sometimes happen after the emergence of certain controversies on social networks. Google specifies, however, that each deletion request will be analyzed with the greatest care to ensure that it does not at the same time limit access to certain information that could prove useful, in particular in press articles.
The search engine also indicates that it will not delete data that appears on government sites or official sources. The American giant concludes with a useful reminder: if this data is deleted from Google’s search results, it does not disappear from the Internet.
To get rid of it for good, you will have no choice but to contact the site hosting your data to request its deletion.
Source : Google