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Google offers to alert netizens when their personal info shows up in Search
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoAlright, so I experimented with this service a little bit. I already have some ID Theft Protection through my bank, which monitors the Dark Web and alerts me about PII. They also have options where you can send requests to public services to take out your information, like whitepages.com. Google One also monitors the Dark Web and offers an ID Theft Protection service, which is included with the One subscription, which I find is great for a number of reasons, especially being able to get a hold of a live CSR over chat or phone. So there's already monitoring in place for a while now. What's new is that you can request Google to remove results from the Search index. This is not the same as sending a request to the service which listed your information. This is an internal Google matter. So I sent Google a few requests, and they're picky about matching your name or phone or address; it has to match exactly. So I am sort of shooting from the hip in trying to have listings removed from Search. But I think they've approved one or two requests, and they've denied three more. Simply removing your results from Google Search is a cosmetic solution. If you're doing nothing to remove the listings themselves, then anyone can still go directly to those sites and find your information. I use whitepages.com directly all the time. I don't just Google someone's name, that's a foolish hitting-fly-with-sledgehammer attempt. Some of the sites which are listed in Search, and may show up as a Snippet, will not allow you to directly see that information on their website without payment. Therefore, Google may deny your request for de-indexing if you can't verify an exact match and which information they're holding.