[HN Gopher] You can now ask Google to remove your phone number, ...
___________________________________________________________________
You can now ask Google to remove your phone number, email or
address from search
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 566 points
Date : 2022-04-29 19:32 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (krebsonsecurity.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (krebsonsecurity.com)
| beyondd wrote:
| This is great, but removing the info from Google does nothing to
| remove it from the source. People search data brokers are one of
| the most common sources of unwanted posting of home address,
| phone number and email. If that's the info you want to remove,
| you can use Google as a tool for discovery to figure out who is
| posting the info, and then opt out at the source to have it
| removed. For more coverage you can use Optery's free crawl /
| scrape / scan of the people search data broker sites for you, and
| use that to have the listings removed from the source. Wherever
| possible, removing the info from the source is much better than
| just removing it from Google.
| tyrfing wrote:
| Those sites are low quality and it's often easy to get much
| better free data. SF recorder's publicly posted property
| records, searchable by name, for example. There are also
| numerous private databases with high quality data which
| certainly don't want to be indexed. Your info being on those
| public sites (which isn't very meaningful due to how many
| errors they have) is mostly a symptom of how easily available
| it is, rather than a source to be plugged. Suppressing it may
| make it slightly harder for an uncommitted nutcase to track you
| down, but won't make much of a difference overall. Going from a
| name to much more info is very easy in the general case, and if
| it isn't, there won't be valid info on those sites.
| [deleted]
| tnzk wrote:
| Recently I'm interested in Optery. What do you think the most
| differentiator to Atlas? https://www.atlas.net/
| another-dave wrote:
| It's good form to disclose that you own the tool you're
| recommending.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Personally its always been out there these people search sites
| just make it easy to figure it out who your dealing with
| especially when it comes to dating.
|
| Was just with someone for the past few months who said all
| their relatives passed due to a horrific car accident and they
| would talk a lot about saying how much they missed them and are
| alone; have no one. Ummm they are all alive and well.. there
| was no horrific accident and she is just a crazy manipulator...
| gain sympathy to get whatever she wanted (toxic ... gross.. go
| away) ... Amber Heard type.
|
| thanks SearchPeopleFree.com for letting me learn and move on
| quickly!
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| rotexo wrote:
| So you would recommend Optery? Some of the paid opt-out
| services seem to me to be essentially extortion schemes, want
| to make sure any service I use wouldn't be like that.
| gingerlime wrote:
| a shoutout to https://yourdigitalrights.org/ which is a
| nonprofit which tries to tackle this.
|
| I haven't used it yet, and it feels rough around the edges. I
| donated however and talked to their founder and I think this
| model fits better than a commercial one. The way it's built
| you don't actually share any data with them. They essentially
| provide templates to make erasure requests and follow-ups
| easier.
| varenc wrote:
| I love the idea, but they're horrible in practice. Provide
| very little help for most data brokers. And the opt out
| links are out of data for many sites.
| beyondd wrote:
| Extensive analysis of Optery and the topic of removing your
| personal info from the web on HN here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30605010
| hanniabu wrote:
| Are you still using those misleading scam tactics? And
| what's the purpose of the monthly membership if it works?!
| varenc wrote:
| The monthly subscription only make sense if you consider
| that new data brokers are popping up all the time and
| opting out is a constant process. That said, it seems
| like 90% of the value you get from a one-time usage, but
| of course they insist on a subscription.
|
| But my solution to that is to use a burner credit card
| number! Specifically from privacy.com. I just make a new
| card with a limit of $20 to ensure it can't be billed
| again next month. I should of course just cancel the
| subscription, but if I forget they can't charge me next
| month anyway. I highly recommend privacy.com or other
| burner card services.
| rotexo wrote:
| Thanks, will have to read up on it.
| varenc wrote:
| Just FYI, the parent commenter is the Founder of Optery! So I
| think they'd recommend it, though I appreciate their light
| touch. It does seem like Optery is the only legit offering in
| a sea of scammy opt-out services/schemes.
| gingerlime wrote:
| how do you know which service to trust? honest question
| KarlKemp wrote:
| Meh... If some data about me is listed on a website nobody ever
| sees, I don't care what sound a tree falling in the wood makes.
|
| This isn't a binary issue. Removing data from Google will
| usually have 90 % of the effect of removing it everywhere.
| willis936 wrote:
| Data brokers aren't "websites no one uses".
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| They're not websites no one ever sees, they're websites who
| will sell your personal data to _anyone_. They 'll sell it in
| bulk to advertisers, or just to any individual.
|
| I had to deal with a stalker at one point and found over 100
| of such sites, it took me a few days to opt out of all of
| them (and some ignored my requests).
|
| Data brokers are total scum.
|
| Not to mention that this Google effort requires an explicit
| threat to be made on the page in question. They won't remove
| data broker pages, you have to contact each on individually
| and hope they'll actually fulfill your request.
| bobbygoodlatte wrote:
| That all changes if you have a stalker / bad actor going
| after you online. Once your address hits one of these sites,
| it's on every one of them. And you'll be playing a constant
| game of whac-a-mole if you want them removed.
|
| The amount of hoops you need to jump through to protect your
| privacy / shield your address in the US is quite incredible.
| And if you don't do it correctly from the start (use an
| anonymous land trust, etc), you're hosed.
|
| Privacy should be the default. People's home addresses
| shouldn't be public info
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| That's if you define privacy as you knowing something and
| others not knowing.
|
| My post-lobotomy view of privacy is all my secrets are
| known to the people I hate the absolute most ("I hate them
| with perfect hatred // I call them mine enemies" PSALMS
| KJV), and while I thank them as enemies (Matthew KJV) I do
| not forgive them, the intention is someday they thank me in
| return, as the Christians they claim to be, for acting
| against them as an enemy.
|
| So then, what is privacy? If you're lobotomized, privacy is
| divulgation. I cannot erase my lobotomist's memory, and I
| cannot recollect all my own selfsame memories, so instead I
| divulge, and divulging is privacy.
|
| Understand this: privacy is about who knows what. Who do
| you want to know what? Some options are out of the question
| for me. After all, there is a condition right on the box of
| all cryptographic products, in this case especially
| 1Password which I used before, during, and after my
| lobotomy, which is this: cryptography is about forcing the
| government to torture you. Not just the government though!
| If you get tortured? Forget it! Warranty void!
|
| Well so then what? Nobody asks, OK so I get tortured, THEN
| WHAT? ANSWER ME! And I think I'm supposed to not be able to
| see the answer, I've been conditioned to avert my attention
| to the answer, not see the ads for the answer like fucking
| literal pathological banner blindness. So many ads I wanted
| so badly to see, I just couldn't see. The most targeted
| advertising, missing completely. Like it's invisible to me,
| I read the statute in the Federal Codes about torture, how
| it was defined, and I simply couldn't read the lawyer's
| advertising with a phone number to call them.
|
| So privacy? Before torture, divulging works against
| privacy. After torture, it works in its favor.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| Name -> address lookup being secret doesn't really make
| sense. Once it's out, you can't undo it, but you share it
| with all your friends and lots of organizations. I'd say
| something else in society needs to be fixed if that's
| become a problem. We used to have phone books, afterall.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _hoops you need to jump through to protect your privacy /
| shield your address in the US is quite incredible_
|
| The U.S. has a decentralized land registration system. The
| downside is it usually cannot provide indefeasible title
| [1]. The upside is it's tremendously robust. That
| robustness comes, in part, from publicly-verifiable
| records.
|
| > _People 's home addresses shouldn't be public info_
|
| Confidential property ownership has its own issues.
|
| It's less stable. In the event of a dispute you only have
| the registrar's and disputing owners' records to consult.
| It's also associated with embezzlement, money laundering
| and tax fraud. (The set of societies where a public home
| address puts one at risk and the set that have problems
| with embezzlement and laundering overlap in their
| institutional weakness.)
|
| (For tenants, on the other hand, there are fewer compelling
| reasons to publish residence.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrens_title#Indefeasibi
| lity_...
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| It took me about 10 minutes to figure out that the link provided
| from the Google article really just leads to a workflow where i
| have to answer just the right questions to get to the actual form
| (https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?rd=1...)
| . And, then go through a second workflow, which puts you to...
| the first workflow.
|
| I have yet to reach a page where I can submit the URLs to be
| removed. I consider myself a neophyte technologist, since I just
| started a few decades ago with punch cards. I doubt most of the
| general public will figure out how to perform this process.
|
| I will give some grace, and come back in a month.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > I have yet to reach a page where I can submit the URLs to be
| removed. I consider myself a neophyte technologist, since I
| just started a few decades ago with punch cards.
|
| Internet literacy is probably unrelated to punch card literacy.
|
| I followed the link in the article (from kreb) to the google
| blog post announcing it:
|
| https://blog.google/products/search/new-options-for-removing...
|
| That linked to this form:
|
| https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/9685456?...
|
| First you tell them what the info it (eg address Pcture SSN
| etc). Assuming it matches what is in the announcements as a
| supported type, you get an inline form asking for your
| name/email, then a URL to the offending site(s), query terms on
| google search that yield the site(s), and then optionally
| screenshots of the content.
|
| After, you click a button saying you're legally the person
| you're saying you are. I don't have data to submit in the form
| so i don't know what happens next but it looks like the end.
| Are you sure you didn't just submit a successful request and
| they redirected you to the landing page?
|
| Disclosure: I work at G but didn't know this existed until I
| heard from Kreb.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Internet literacy is probably unrelated to punch card
| literacy._
|
| The parent commenter was using self-deprecating "humor",
| which I understand can be confusing for Lumon Industries
| innies. Your outie will appreciate it!
| dannysullivan wrote:
| I work from Google Search. Hope this helps clarify...
|
| There's a lot of personal info we'll remove such as images of
| minors, involuntary fake pornography and other issues as
| outlined here:
| https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/3111061
|
| Our announcement this week was about an expansion of removing
| personally _identifying_ information -- PII -- (such as email
| addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, etc),. This is
| the page that explains in more detail and where people should
| begin the removal process:
| https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| The removal process will lead you to a troubleshooter. That's
| designed to help people more quickly get things resolved. For
| example, if a web page no longer exists on the web, or the site
| owner removed info, there are faster options you can use rather
| than going down the formal removal request option.
|
| But let's say you want something removed that has PII from a
| page that's live on the web and where you for whatever reason
| don't want to contact the site owner. The troubleshooter from
| that page I mentioned will lead you here:
| https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/9685456#...
|
| Say No to contacting the site owner, select Personal Info from
| the next option, pick the type of info and you'll get to the
| form (such as here if it involves contact info):
| https://support.google.com/websearch/troubleshooter/9685456#...
|
| That's where you enter the info. Appreciate the feedback that
| we should look at how to improve this more -- that said, the
| troubleshooter itself isn't new, and people have used it to
| successfully remove information beyond our recent expansion.
| But we'll see how to make it better.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| It's almost like Google doesn't want anyone to use this
| 'feature'... Great company.
| ugh123 wrote:
| Thanks for the help! What can Google do about property search
| records on the internet? I understand this is technically
| "public" information, but having my full address searchable
| on the internet via just my name is kind of scary. Can those
| sites be removed entirely from the index? (i.e. realtyhop,
| blockshopper, clustrmaps, etc)
| vlovich123 wrote:
| But you do get that that's not particularly user friendly
| right?
|
| Like why not offer tools to make it easy to submit "here's my
| phone number - delist it" or "here's my name and all
| addresses I've lived - delist"and then you use Google's
| awesome search and AI capabilities to figure that out. Then
| facilitate disputes between site owners and individuals. But
| forcing me to scan the internet looking for things that other
| malicious crawlers are finding. That's not user friendly I
| think (in addition that finding this needs someone on the
| team to explain it on HN, one of the most technical sites on
| the world).
|
| It's like the Douglas Adam's joke from Hitchhikers (going
| from memory so I'm sure I'm butchering it): "but we published
| the plans to destroy the Earth in the center of the next
| galaxy in the 100th underground floor of the administrative
| building in the filing cabinet in the locked room guarded by
| man eating lions."
| kzrdude wrote:
| I searched for a number that's similar to mine (not my
| own).
|
| I found google hits listing it as a german number, italian
| number, swedish number and more. Clearly not all of these
| are "my number" even if it's the same number. It's not
| reasonable that those pages are all delisted, is it?
| breakfastduck wrote:
| Because they want to make it as difficult as possible on
| purpose.
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| The full quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
|
| > "But the plans were on display..."
|
| > "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to
| find them."
|
| > "That's the display department."
|
| > "With a flashlight."
|
| > "Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."
|
| > "So had the stairs."
|
| > "But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"
|
| > "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the
| bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused
| lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the
| Leopard."
| vijayr02 wrote:
| Your quote is about the local department's plans to
| demolish Arthur Dent's house.
|
| The quote about the destruction of Earth is:
|
| >'There's no point acting all surprised about it. All the
| planning charts and demolition orders have been on
| display in your local planning department in Alpha
| Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had
| plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far
| too late to start making a fuss about it now.'
|
| > 'What do you mean you've never been to Alpha Centauri?
| For heaven's sake mankind, it's only four light years
| away you know. I'm sorry, but if you can't be bothered to
| take an interest in local affairs that's your own
| lookout.
|
| > 'I don't know' said the voice on the PA, 'apathetic
| bloody planet, I've no sympathy at all.'
| swores wrote:
| To be fair, they correctly picked out the quote that is
| actually relevant and also the one that their parent
| comment had been thinking of.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Actually clearly with time I'd merged the two.
| Thorrez wrote:
| If you have an AI, it'll likely have false positives. Then
| website owners might end up wondering why a lot of their
| pages aren't showing up in the results.
|
| Disclosure, I work at Google, but not on anything related
| to this, so I'm just speculating.
| jasfi wrote:
| Plus what about people trying to remove the details of
| someone else. It's not something you want automated.
| sschueller wrote:
| Every x days I need to revalidate my phone number for
| Google voice. I would think Google has the mechanisms to
| validate phone number. In fact they also have the ability
| to validate addresses which they use for maps business
| listings.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Which is why I said make the process more like DMCA where
| the page owner can contest.
| slvrspoon wrote:
| Because that's not Google's business. At least this is a
| step in the right direction. That IS the business of
| privacy removal services like DeleteMe which i am a
| cofounder of. Like in many things in life the advice
| "follow the $" can be helpful here ;)
| ashkankiani wrote:
| People who end comments/messages with ";)" or the like
| always seem so condescending.
| djbusby wrote:
| What's follow the money mean here? Like Google won't do
| work cause there is too much cost? This usage of the
| phrase don't match my understanding (which is the Lester
| Fremon (The Wire) usage) - in that it leads to
| corruption.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I think the notion they're trying to convey is Google
| doesn't have much motivation to make this feature good /
| humane as it has little immediate impact to their bottom
| line, compared to a company whose revenue derives
| directly from how well said feature performs.
| ShamelessC wrote:
| i think to parent comment it means "use my service, if
| google makes one i cant compete"
| mig_ wrote:
| But what if Googles model is to make personal data
| useless the root cause businesses and therefore kill off
| your business.
|
| To kill off the root cause, Google could feed peoples
| privacy data into the SSO ranking. Websites with a lot of
| privacy data get a lower SSO. This cripples the business
| and with it, your business.
|
| Just a hypothetical, I wish all the best for DeleteMe.
| I'm checking out optery.com right now and will check
| DeleteMe next.
|
| "Don't be evil" I think may still be true and may
| actionably translate to "Don't sell user data _directly_"
| r_hoods_ghost wrote:
| Ah good 'ole customer diversion, intentionally making it as
| difficult as possible for the customer to do what they want
| to do by making them jump through hoops on the pretence that
| you know better. Saves google money as it takes humans out
| the loop. Lovely dark pattern.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Very much appreciate the quick response and explanation!
|
| I found that a usability expert can come handy.
| jfoster wrote:
| For the form field "List the query terms", shouldn't it be a
| multi-line field?
|
| The instruction is: "Please enter one query term per line
| (max 10000 lines)"
| froh wrote:
| Cool thanks for the details!
|
| How do you protect someone filing fake requests to hide
| another person or personal business from being findable, to
| damage them? How do you prevent abuse?
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| This initially seems like great news, but here is the link to the
| article that's actually posted as a screenshot in TFA:
|
| https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| From that article: > We evaluate each request
| based on the criteria listed below, and evaluate the content for
| public interest. As a result, we may...deny your request.
|
| With the exception of email addresses below, can anyone provide a
| circumstance when Google might legitimately find that _not_
| removing the following would be "in the public interest"?
| * Confidential government identification (ID) numbers like U.S.
| Social Security Number (..) etc. * Bank account
| numbers * Credit card numbers * Images of
| handwritten signatures * Images of ID docs
| * Highly personal, restricted, and official records, like medical
| records * Personal contact info (physical addresses,
| phone numbers, and email addresses) * Confidential
| login credentials
|
| It seems there's quite a bit of wiggle room in this policy to
| remove some search results and not others.
| shitlord wrote:
| I can't think of a good reason to remove ID docs, mugshots,
| court records, and other personal information of convicted
| child molesters.
|
| There's a reason we have sex offender registries, even if they
| go too far sometimes. You should be able to look up why a
| person is on the registry using a search engine, and criminals
| shouldn't be able to hide their past.
|
| Some of them probably will get harassed for it, but I'm fine
| with that.
| mikepechadotcom wrote:
| Sounds great, however I am scared that when I do this, Google
| will flag my account, and if I need to use their other services,
| like Google Ads, Gmail, YouTube etc. my account is suddenly
| blocked because of [insert arbitrary ToS violation]
| dannysullivan wrote:
| I work for Google Search. And no, we won't. Moreover, the form
| doesn't require anyone to be logged into to file a request.
| Teandw wrote:
| That's a random thing to be worried of. That's not going to
| happen.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| I am fairly sure I was banned from AdSense for saying "don't
| forget to subscribe if you liked this post" on blogspot,
| although they never told me why so I can only guess since it
| happened soon after I started ending my posts with it.
|
| It was my only source of income as I had just graduated and
| losing it completely pivoted my life. Now I see Youtubers say
| it daily and it still reminds me.
| bduerst wrote:
| What makes you think you were banned from Adsense for
| saying something that common?
| mig_ wrote:
| Two theories.
|
| 1. Google already does a good job of filtering out email
| addresses. I remember searching email addresses I was curious
| about 5ish years ago and getting results. Today, I get far fewer
| hits. So my theory is that google is already attempting to sort
| of scrub peoples email addresses from their searches. Us filling
| out the form is feedback to the machine learning.
|
| 2. Google wants to corner the market on this information and this
| is how they bleed the companies out. (I don't they have
| _actually_ devoted enough resources to this to bleed the other
| companies out) The business motive? There isn't a particular
| offering this data is good for besides selling to 3rd parties
| besides the business Google is already in. This data could
| enhance other data sets for other offerings. As simple as "auto-
| complete" for phone number after you have entered your name or
| address fill after entering your phone number.
| emodendroket wrote:
| I remember the good old days when Google offered a reverse phone
| lookup. Now trying to do that just leads to pages and pages of
| spam.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| Why wasn't this done sooner?
| voakbasda wrote:
| I have asked Google (repeatedly) to remove roads on my private
| property from their Maps. Those roads still appear there, so I
| find it hard to believe they will honor these types requests
| either.
| Teandw wrote:
| From previous experience they will virtually never 'remove' a
| road as the road is there and it should appear for 'accuracy'
| purpose, so if you're trying to get them to do that, that will
| be the reason why it's staying up.
|
| Instead you have to submit an edit and state in there that it's
| a private road and on private property so should not be used
| for navigation purposes. It will then be removed from
| navigation etc.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| Do your roads appear on any government maps? I believe the
| mapping agency for road is called...shucks I forget. They're
| sometimes ahead or behind Google maps.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If it is a private road on private property, I don't care if
| it is on a gov't map or not. It should not be listed as a
| route on any publicly available map service. In fact, it
| should be required to be explicitly labeled as private
| property "violaters will be prosecuted" type of thing.
| mvgoogler wrote:
| Where I live in semi-rural Maine, probably 90+% of the
| houses are on private roads on private land. If they
| weren't listed as routes in map services nobody would be
| able to find us.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Several years back Google started naming the alley ways in my
| neighborhood as if they were streets. Either all of the car
| services use Google maps, or other map services made the same
| decision. This is obvious as drivers are constantly being
| routed through alleys in my neighborhood for
| rideshares/deliveries/etc. As a side benefit to this, you can
| tell if your driver is clueless by watching them go through the
| alleys to find you or make the obvious decision to not go down
| an alley.
|
| Several attempts at reporting this to Gmaps has gone ignored.
| LightG wrote:
| I had a similar issue. Trying to resolved involved debating
| the matter ad infinituum with a "local specialist" and was
| futile with no recourse or oversight.
|
| Google sucks so much at these countless edge cases that it
| drains all the benefit of anything they're actually good at.
|
| Don't get me started.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are plenty of reasons to map roads on private property,
| and presumably it is visible in satellite imagery, so I don't
| see that as a compelling argument by itself. If we're not
| counting oceans, most of what is on a map is private property.
| voakbasda wrote:
| My roads are not visible from satellite and are behind locked
| gates. There is zero legitimate reason for anyone to know
| these roads exist.
| kube-system wrote:
| I wonder how Google does know, then.
| pelorat wrote:
| New roads can be submitted by users. Google has a map
| editor where anyone can make changes and have them
| officially approved. They could have been submitted by a
| random Google Map user that was scrolling around and
| noticed missing roads.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Probably satellite.
|
| "Not visible from an aerial shot with leaves on" doesn't
| really mean anything. If the roads aren't buried
| underground or in a tropical rainforest, they are
| probably visible to a satellite at the right time or
| wavelength.
| 2xpress wrote:
| Did the private roads require plan submission and
| building permits? The plans likely got stored in some
| government map database, which in turn got sucked in by
| Google.
| sumthinprofound wrote:
| once a month I google my PII and then either opt out through the
| hosting website or go through the google removal request process.
|
| After I saw this news article about phone # removal I went to
| look for the search results that I had previously found on Google
| but apparently Google had already delisted them. Good stuff.
| fibers wrote:
| Isn't this good? What's the downside?
| Teandw wrote:
| The possible downside is that it could allow
| scammers/fraudsters to get their details removed.
| tyingq wrote:
| Looks like perhaps a loophole to deindex any page from google
| that allows comments. Just sneak in some doxxing looking info,
| like a bank account number and name like "John Doe
| 99874848383".
| rosndo wrote:
| Who needs such a "loophole"? It's already very common to take
| down pages with fake DMCAs, fake legal process and fake court
| orders.
|
| Anyone wanting to deploy dirty tricks to remove things from
| Google can do so very easily already
| tyingq wrote:
| It has the advantage of being a little more stealthy than
| taking those kind of actions against the page itself.
| [deleted]
| rosndo wrote:
| Krebs's doxing posts will get removed from Google?
| rotexo wrote:
| This is really good, imho. The downside is that the information
| is of course all still out there for a sufficiently motivated
| person to find.
| _jal wrote:
| > What's the downside?
|
| I did reconnect with someone I lost track of a long time ago
| via google-stalking, found their email address. I'm pretty sure
| they agree that it was nice to reconnect, we talk regularly
| again.
|
| (Neither of us are FB users, so no, it doesn't substitute.)
| notafraudster wrote:
| For this to be a downside, you have to believe that the
| person expressly wants to remove their email address from
| your view, but nevertheless wants to reconnect with you.
| That's possible, but I don't think a sane thing to build
| around.
| lupire wrote:
| It's a downside, not a "build around".
| [deleted]
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Now Google knows _exactly_ who and where you are.
| andrewgioia wrote:
| > Google says a removal request will be considered if the search
| result in question includes the presence of "explicit or implicit
| threats" or "explicit or implicit calls to action for others to
| harm or harass."
|
| Apparently they've always had a process for bank account info and
| other related things, but I can't get some of the newly included
| items, like login credentials, removed unless I can show actual
| or implicit threats of harm?
| vlunkr wrote:
| I'm implicitly threatened by a multi-billion dollar corporation
| making my personal information available publicly and refusing
| to remove it unless I have evidence of explicit or implicit
| threats.
| throwaway0220 wrote:
| > " _...unless I have evidence of explicit or implicit
| threats._ "
|
| It seems you're misreading the policy. See my comment above
| [1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31210455
| Teandw wrote:
| Technically they haven't made your personal information
| available publicly. It was already public if Google managed
| to get their hands on it. They've just made it easier to
| find.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Google buys 90% of credit card transactions. That's not
| public information.
|
| And the only way to opt out of it is to not use credit
| cards.
| lupire wrote:
| It is not _free_ as in gratis, but it is publivally
| available, just as tomatoes are publicly available at
| stores.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > Google buys 90% of credit card transactions.
|
| Source, please.
| lupire wrote:
| Bloomberg reported (paywall) and the web plagiarized:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Google%20buys%2090%25%20o
| f%2...
|
| The "90%" might not be easily sourced, but also not the
| crux.
| DaltonCoffee wrote:
| Do they publicly index this information tho?
| reaperducer wrote:
| Does it matter?
|
| Is it somehow OK for someone to build a dossier on
| another person as long as they use that information for
| their own purposes?
| Teandw wrote:
| Well, yes. Because you're talking about a different
| scenario than what is going on here.
| alar44 wrote:
| Yes? Are you telling me I can't know things about people?
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You won't get your mitts on their video rental records.
| We need another embarrassing data breach to get more
| protections.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is this still true? Nobody goes to Blockbuster to rent
| videos. Videos are streamed to you on a plethora of
| devices. Does the video rental regulations apply to
| YouTube sharing your video selections? PornHub? Netflix?
| munk-a wrote:
| There isn't a material difference between those two things.
| What precisely is private information - outside of
| information stored solely inside your head. Even medical
| records can be made public through certain actions so
| pretty much everything is potentially public information.
|
| Making things easier to find can be a threat - it's why
| there's a lot of compelling discussion around websites that
| take rosters of arrest records and post them on big scary
| websites along with pictures and lurid descriptions of the
| person's crime - offering to remove the information for a
| fee.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Fascinating, isn't it, that linking to a movie or cracked
| software is something they have to stop linking to upon
| request no questions asked _by law_ , but if your
| personal information or financial information or login
| credentials are posted somewhere, you gotta prove you'd
| be harassed...
|
| The US needs a GDPR-equivalent law.
| Teandw wrote:
| Making things easier to find can be a threat, yes. I
| guess that's why they're moving towards allowing things
| like this to be removed.
| no-dr-onboard wrote:
| I wonder what the standards are to verify this. Can I just
| sockpuppet a twitter account calling for my harassment and then
| use that as proof of targeting?
|
| IMO there should be as few barriers to entry as possible with
| something like this.
| stult wrote:
| Cool new business model, harassment as a service. We'll get
| your info off google for the low low price of $1.99 per fake
| death threat
| reaperducer wrote:
| I hear ads on the radio for "reputation management"
| companies that, in part, use similar methods.
| dannysullivan wrote:
| I work for Google Search. We're working to clear this up.
| Threat is not required to remove the listed PII. I'll repeat
| what I shared in another comment here:
|
| There is NO requirement of threat to remove anything listed as
| personally identifiable information on this page (such as
| personal contact info, medical records, login credentials,
| etc): https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| Beyond those things listed, in some cases someone who is being
| threatened might feel there's additional information that
| someone might feel is somehow personally identifying. This is
| where the doxxing/threat option can be used, for something not
| on the list where no threat is required.
|
| Appreciate this is confusing to some; we'll be looking at how
| to clarify that.
| andrewgioia wrote:
| Thanks I really appreciate the clarification, this is a great
| addition.
| Nuzzerino wrote:
| So the takeaway I get here is that it's perfectly fine for
| someone to dox you as long as they leave phone number, email
| address, and physical address out of it. Got it.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| "We generally aim to preserve information access if the
| content is determined to be of public interest. This includes
| but isn't limited to:
|
| Content on or from government and other official sources
| Newsworthy content Professionally-relevant content"
|
| 1. This removal process does not remove those public
| information aggregator sites, like "Who lives here.whatever",
| "Didthispersoneverappearincourt.com". The problem with the
| court aggregator sites is they are wrong some times. I
| imagine Google makes a ton of money off them though?
|
| 2. Google should remove all personal details, unless a person
| was in the news.
|
| 3. I'm on the fence whether you should even index sites like
| Yelp.com?
| leowoo91 wrote:
| I tried this feature for a public record before, unfortunately
| they don't consider it as PII and make it so easy for people to
| get everything about you. I wouldn't have concerns this data
| appearing on gov websites, however this kind of easy reach is bit
| inconvenient to be in a single search.
| rhexs wrote:
| Here's a direct link to the removal process:
| https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| Really neat.
| distrohopper wrote:
| if your email, phone number or address shows up in Google search
| you are doing it wrong
| jollybean wrote:
| This is a good start. And it should be easier. And somehow by
| default.
| ge96 wrote:
| Ha the other day I found this site truepeoplesearch has all my
| addresses/phone numbers, relatives... like cool
|
| It probably came from resumes or something but still
| belter wrote:
| Do you mind if I send your application to a few jobs? :-)
| ge96 wrote:
| The data that they have is crazy, goes back at least 2
| decades (places I lived in life).
| genewitch wrote:
| Awesome, because no sites use prior addresses to confirm
| your identity or anything.
| kzrdude wrote:
| No access to this site here. It's probably GDPR-blocked for me,
| which is fair.
| kube-system wrote:
| Assuming you're in the US, it is probably from financial data.
| The whole market for data brokering has deep roots in financial
| services like credit reporting.
| apatheticonion wrote:
| Still can't ask them to remove a legacy YouTube account you had
| access to though.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Put the content on a server you control; call in a copyright
| strike against the account; ...; Profit!?
| suyash wrote:
| Here is the actual link to request removal :
| https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
| [deleted]
| recuter wrote:
| Do humans really review these requests manually? How would that
| scale?
| Teandw wrote:
| They do get reviewed manually. I would imagine in the grand
| scheme of things, not many people would ever submit it.
|
| Scaling it wouldn't be hard regardless, this would be very
| basic task based work, that they would hire out to India or via
| companies that handle this sort of work.
| recuter wrote:
| That's quite the contract. Could funnel the profits to
| another company that targets end users offering assistance in
| getting scrubbed from the internet.
| Teandw wrote:
| They tend to contract this sort of work to companies like
| Lionbridge who are very strict on rules etc.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Do humans really review these requests manually? How would
| that scale?
|
| A slow and frustrating process to stop displaying your private
| information does Google no harm, so the answer from their side
| is likely "who cares?"
| unwind wrote:
| Meta: The title is truncated ("Search" at the end turned to
| "Searc") which doesn't look very nice.
|
| I would suggest maybe s/Remove/Drop/ or just s/from Searc//.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The headline is extremely misleading. They will only remove the
| information if you are being targeted by a doxxing campaign, and
| they make it incredibly onerous to remove the information - you
| have to provide screenshots, the URLs that generate the search
| results, and then, bizarrely, you must also separately provide
| the search terms.
|
| The whole thing feels like a /r/maliciouscompliance post.
| dannysullivan wrote:
| I work for Google Search. We're working to clear this up.
| Threat is not required to remove the listed PII. I'll repeat
| what I shared in another comment here:
|
| There is NO requirement of threat to remove anything listed as
| personally identifiable information on this page (such as
| personal contact info, medical records, login credentials,
| etc): https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| Beyond those things listed, in some cases someone who is being
| threatened might feel there's additional information that
| someone might feel is somehow personally identifying. This is
| where the doxxing/threat option can be used, for something not
| on the list where no threat is required.
|
| Appreciate this is confusing to some; we'll be looking at how
| to clarify that.
| slvrspoon wrote:
| Indeed it's complex to do the submission but I understand why
| Google needs some of the details to process with fidelity and
| consideration. Sadly, simple privacy is now complex to achieve.
| We have to start unraveling 25 years of unfettered data
| collection somewhere. Google here is no worse than the data
| brokers red tape processes and corporations hiding behind
| consent managers with ID verification etc.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I have gotten information removed from Google like this and found
| it replaced within about a month
| praveenhm wrote:
| Removing from google doesn't go far enough, the big culprit is
| the data broker. Displaying your age, is the biggest worry, among
| your friends circle. John oliver recently made a late night show
| on data brokers, threatening the congress members, must watch for
| anyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn3gR1WTcA
| c3534l wrote:
| Sweet. This should finally get rid of that sex story I
| accidentally posted from my regular email account.
| kappattack wrote:
| I did this a few months back, and i was very happy with how easy
| it was to remove my information from Google. At that time though
| I had to get the content removed from each site, and then i had
| to notify google that the excerpts had changed due to my requests
| for the websites to remove my personal information. Its really
| nice to see that Google is now moving towards supporting a
| request to remove PII from results, without having to deal with
| individual websites, who almost always are scam sites who will
| try to get you to 'subscribe for premium profile control to hide
| specific content'. Never give these people a dime. Google
| processed my requests very quickly and the content just can't be
| found using their search engine anymore.
|
| Bing, on the other hand, was an absolute nightmare. After
| emailing for around a month with MSoft support, they claimed they
| removed content that was still showing up, and still is showing
| up to this day. This content doesn't even exist on the pages that
| Bing is showing excerpts from, and hasn't for around a year now.
| It became very clear to me that Bing had no effective process in
| place to carry out content removal requests, so I eventually gave
| up. Unfortunate, because alternative search engines like Ddgo and
| Brave show results from Bing, IIRC.
|
| I guess you can't place all the blame on these sites. I also
| found out my state releases the entire registered voter database
| for anyone to download online, without any reason or
| identification required. So if you're a registered voter, it is
| possible that the information you provided to register is public
| and available online anyways. This includes full name, email,
| address, and phone number - if I remember correctly. It's been
| some time since I looked through the database though. I found my
| entire family within it, and it receives quarterly updates. I
| would not be surprised if the government was at least one primary
| source of information for PII scam sites in the first place.
| gzer0 wrote:
| I am not advocating for or against this practice; but in the
| United States the voter record has always been part of the
| public domain [1].
|
| The National Conference of State Legislatures breaks out a by-
| state view of what info is available and how it can be used
| [2]. There's another good article [3] doing a state-by-state
| analysis of voter file privacy. The public file should only
| contain: Name, address, year of birth. The following should be
| kept confidential: DL number, last 4 of SSN, month and day of
| birth, phone number, information that a person declined to
| register to vote, the office that received a registered voter's
| application, digitized signature.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/u-s-voter-info-has-
| alw...
|
| [2] https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-
| campaigns/access...
|
| [3] https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/personal-
| voter-...
| kappattack wrote:
| Cool information and links. Thanks for sharing!
| deadbunny wrote:
| Why is this dependant on receiving threats? By that point people
| already have your info. Why can't I remove it without jumping
| through hoops?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| dannysullivan wrote:
| I work for Google Search. There is NO requirement of threat to
| remove anything listed as personally identifiable information
| on this page (such as personal contact info, medical records,
| login credentials, etc):
| https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
|
| Beyond those things listed, in some cases someone who is being
| threatened might feel there's additional information that
| someone might feel is somehow personally identifying. This is
| where the doxxing/threat option can be used, for something not
| on the list where no threat is required.
|
| Appreciate this is confusing to some; we'll be looking at how
| to clarify that.
| [deleted]
| throwaway0220 wrote:
| > _Why is this dependant on receiving threats?_
|
| It is not.
|
| From the form [1]: " _...that has POTENTIAL to create
| significant risks of identity theft, financial fraud, harmful
| direct contact, or other specific harms..._ " (emphasis mine).
|
| The requirements section states that you may request removal
| due to the page having "personally identifiable info" OR
| doxxing content "used in implicit or explicit threats".
|
| Now, there's exceptions to this (e.g. public records,
| newsworthy content), but nowhere it says you have to receive
| threats first before requesting removal.
|
| disclaimer: Googler, but no relationship with the team, and
| have no other knowledge of this policy other reading the public
| blog post.
|
| [1] https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9673730
| jjulius wrote:
| >It is not.
|
| >... nowhere it says you have to receive threats first before
| requesting removal.
|
| Oh come on now, this is taken directly from your link:
|
| >Requirements to remove doxxing content
|
| >For us to consider the content for removal, it must meet
| both of these requirements:
|
| >1. Your contact info is present.
|
| >2. There's the presence of:
|
| >- Explicit or implicit threats, or
|
| >- Explicit or implicit calls to action for others to harm or
| harass.
|
| So, yes. To remove doxxing content, you are required to show
| proof of explicit or implicit threats.
|
| If you think about it, the way the requirements are set up
| are pretty damn backwards. Are you just requesting your
| personal info to be removed just for the sake of having it
| removed? Sure, as long as it's your CC/bank
| account/SSN/whatever else on that list, they'll remove it.
| But if you tell them you're being doxxed? Well fuck you, they
| won't just up and remove the data like they would've before,
| now you have to prove you're being targeted, too. It's like
| it'd be easier to have the doxxing content removed if you
| _didn 't_ tell them you're being doxxed.
| throwaway0220 wrote:
| Isn't it a tautology? When you're doxxed, your personal
| identifiable information was revealed to threat or shame
| you, so yes, you were explicitly or implicitly threatened.
|
| The other part of the form allows you to require removal
| just by stating that it has your "personally identifiable
| information". For example, the many sites offering
| background checks, your address history, etc.
|
| I agree the form is confusing and should be simplified
| (i.e., the whole doxxing section seems redundant to me, and
| should be sub-bullets of the PII section), but OP's comment
| that you can _only_ request removal after receiving threats
| is factually incorrect.
| lupire wrote:
| It's confusing. The policy document lists contact info
| twice, and to the form is missing the "other doxxing
| content" option.
|
| It looks like the form has design errors that don't match
| the policy.
| [deleted]
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| "Is your contact information being shared with malicious,
| threatening, or harassing intent, which is known as doxxing?
|
| - Yes, the contact info is being shared with doxxing intent -
| No, the contact info is not being shared with doxxing intent"
|
| The headline is extremely misleading.
| lupire wrote:
| The policy document is slightly inconsistent with itself
| and inconsistent with the form options.
|
| This was not well reviewed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Why can't I remove it without jumping through hoops?
|
| Because the biggest hoop is that the data is not located in
| just one place. It's the internet, so the data is
| shared/duplicated as fast as it becomes available. You have no
| idea how many places it lives because not all places are
| available for public browsing. Some one buys it, then resells
| it ad nauseam.
| genewitch wrote:
| Let's all collectively cut this 1.7 trillion dollar market
| cap company some slack. They only made all their money
| indexing and storing data for the last 20 years, they can't
| be expected to know how to _not return results_. They 've
| never had to do that before, they just return everything you
| can type in right away.
|
| Give me a break, especially the "googler" in this thread.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >Give me a break, especially the "googler" in this thread.
|
| No. Just no. This is a 1.7 trillion dollar company. They
| can spend some of that money fixing the broken system they
| created, but they chose no. So no slack will be cut/granted
| from me to them.
|
| >they just return everything you can type in right away.
|
| No they don't. They return something that is most
| monetarily beneficial to them whether that is relevant to
| you or not.
| Lapsa wrote:
| aka google collects your phone number, email and address
| qiskit wrote:
| Does this remove it from search results only or from google's
| databases? I'm assuming google keep all the data internally for
| themselves and just filters it out for the users.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| You're doing data verification for them too, confirming those
| details. That will make the data Google have available to sell
| use of to other companies more valuable.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| Well I filled it out. Let's see what happens. A lot of these
| websites have no way to remove personal info or make it very
| difficult to do so, so this is a minor step in the right
| direction. For me it's a matter of safety. I used to have a best
| friend about 15 years ago that got busted for sex crimes with
| minors and he's due to be released next month. The first thing
| he's going to do is look me up and find where I live, I guarantee
| it. I have kids that are around the same age as the minors he
| violated, so it's a serious concern knowing he can so easily find
| where I live and potentially harass us or worse.
| slvrspoon wrote:
| send a support ticket into DeleteMe - we'll help pro bono.
| pawelkobojek wrote:
| It's great but a related question: if Google processes phone
| numbers how is it GDPR compliant? They definitely don't ask every
| person in the EU whether they can process their personal data and
| yet it is possible to find EU citizens' phone numbers using their
| search engine.
| Teandw wrote:
| 'Technically' Google only lists websites in their search engine
| that a website owner has authorised them to scrape/crawl. Part
| of Google's TOS is that if you allow them to crawl your
| website, you're following all legal responsibilities in the
| countries you serve your website to.
|
| That in theory means that if your details are on a website,
| you've already given consent for it to be shared with Google.
|
| Does that happen in reality? Most of the time I doubt it. But
| it pushes the liability onto the website owner.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Uh, you don't really "allow" them to visit your website. All
| you can do is disallow them from visiting by blocking them
| using robots.txt. If you don't have a robots.txt stating
| otherwise they will crawl and index your site.
|
| UPDATE: I suppose if you specifically allow the Googlebot via
| robots.txt, then in that case they could probably argue that
| you gave them permission to access the site.
| Teandw wrote:
| When you put a website live on the internet, you're giving
| everyone permission to access it, including Google, unless
| you state otherwise. (Or put processes in place to make it
| non-public.)
|
| So yes, you do allow them to visit your website.
| creato wrote:
| If you put a website on the internet, you are granting
| anyone or anything permission to look at it by default. The
| alternative seems obviously untenable.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| Exactly, and this is why the TOS mentioned in the comment
| is absurd. Basically that means that if the TOS is
| legally valid, then technically Google can force any
| arbitary terms on you if you simply put a website on the
| internet. This would be the same as saying that all
| citizens of America are subject to this agreement,
| whether if they've seen it or not.
|
| This is worse than shrinkwrap agreements and TOS banners
| at the bottom of a website, since for those you could at
| least argue that the person who opened the box/visited
| the site saw the agreement. But in this case, there is
| absolutely nothing to indicate that the person who
| created the website even knew that Google as an entity
| existed.
| genewitch wrote:
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/missouri-governor-says-
| security-1...
|
| In theory you're right. In practice, just because
| something responds publicly does not mean it's public.
|
| If someone left the vault door open on an ATM it doesn't
| mean you can just have the money, or even take pictures
| of the insides.
|
| Obviously, in IT, people should strive to prevent leaking
| information, but that's obviously going to be an issue
| for a great long while.
| bduerst wrote:
| That article is about a tech-illiterate governor using
| his station to threaten prosecution of the press... for
| discussing a 10-yr old bug that's already well known
| publicly.
|
| If anything, that's more to the discussion of giving
| social security numbers to inept IT departments.
| wumpus wrote:
| Have you ever met a lawyer who thinks that kind of TOS is
| valid in any way?
| cnorthwood wrote:
| Consent isn't the only basis you can use for processing data
| under GDPR
| wumpus wrote:
| I have never seen a lawyer give an opinion about that. One way
| to read the GDPR is that it outlaws all search engines, for
| this reason. More likely it is a huge barrier to entry for new
| search engines.
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