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Google has a free tool that scrubs your personal info from search [1]

['Ellsworth Toohey']

Date: 2026-03-04  

For a few dollars, anyone can buy your full name, where you live, and how to reach you. Data brokers collect this information from public records, old accounts, and scraped websites, then resell it with no questions asked.

Google indexes those broker pages, so your contact details are likely one search away. But the company also offers a free countermeasure called "Results About You." It watches Google's own index for anything containing your personal information, then lets you request takedowns with a single tap. A recent update made the service more useful.

The setup takes a few minutes. After that, the service sends automatic alerts whenever your contact info — phone, email, physical address — surfaces in Google's results. Americans get extra coverage: the tool also catches Social Security numbers and government-issued ID details like passports and driver's licenses. Each alert includes a one-tap removal request.

Thorin Klosowski, who works on security and privacy issues at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the BBC it's "kind of a no-brainer" — "probably number one" on the list of things anyone can do right now with zero effort to protect themselves online.

The automated version requires a Google account. If you don't have one, manual removal requests are still possible through Google's support pages, though the process is clunkier.

One caveat either way: Google delists the search result, but the data itself stays on the broker's site until the broker removes it.

Previously:

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2026/03/04/google-has-a-free-tool-that-scrubs-your-personal-info-from-search.html

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