Some people are selling your name, phone number and home address online, this tool can be easily avoided

 Some people are selling your name, phone number and home address online, this tool can be easily avoided

 

Did you know that there are countless companies that are busy selling your name, home address, phone number and other important information online?

The only job of these companies, called ‘data brokers’, is to provide your information to anyone at a very cheap price. These companies do not care who they are providing your personal details to.

The people to whom these details are provided may include identity theft groups or individuals, a former partner of yours or telemarketing companies.

One thing is certain, this work puts your security at risk.

But there is a tool available that makes it difficult for data brokers to find this type of information about you.

It is a free service provided by Google and this tool is called ‘Results About You’. But the problem is that most people do not know about this tool.

Google scans the internet to improve its search engine, and that content includes sensitive information that you might want to keep private.

By doing so, the company unwittingly exposes you to all sorts of serious risks. But with the click of a button, you can request that Google remove your personal information (name, address, etc.) through ‘Results About You’.

What’s the real problem?

Criminals are buying and selling sensitive information obtained through hacking and data leaks. And this is where Google can’t help you.

It’s also important to understand that Results About You doesn’t remove information about you from other websites, it just removes links to them from Google Search. However, it’s still important to do so.

This tool won’t give you complete privacy and peace of mind, but it does put in place barriers to prevent you from becoming an easy target for online fraudsters.

Even so, if a fraudster who is passionate about their work wants to find you, they will find you, says Klosowski.

“But Google is so common and easy to use that it’s helpful to get rid of the biggest and most obvious problems. You are removing the first layer of information about yourself that is easily available.’

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If you want to completely wipe your online data, additional steps will be required. (We’ll talk about that later.)

You also have to tell Results About You what to se arch for online, and that simply means you’ll have to type sensitive information about yourself into Google’s system.

You might have reservations about giving this data to a company with its own history of privacy controversies.

But Klosowski says Google probably already has information like your address and phone number. Because it runs one of the world’s largest data-harvesting operations. In addition, Google also offers specific privacy guarantees about the service.

A Google spokesperson told the BBC that the data users enter into Results About You is not used for any other purpose. (And this is important. Companies can face millions or billions of dollars in

fines if they are caught lying about your privacy.)

How to use it?

The tool is simple. Just go to the Results About You hub and fill out the form.

You can also submit details of any disturbing content you see on Google there.

Open the three-dot menu next to the link in search results and click ‘Remove result’, or use this page.

Google also removes results that contain information about family members in some cases.

However, it won’t remove everything you want from the search engine. For example, content on government and news sites is exempt.

If you can’t find the information on Google, for many people it’s as if the information doesn’t exist.

But if you want the data to be completely erased from the internet, it’s more difficult.

You can contact data brokers directly and ask them to delete your information. Some paid services will do this for you, i.e. for a fee.

California residents can use the free state platform Drop, which requests your data from thousands of data brokers at once.

It’s the only government tool of its kind so far.

According to Google, more than 10 million people have used Results About You since it launched in 2022.

That’s a huge number, but it’s only a small fraction of Google’s reported 1.8 billion accounts.

You’ll hardly find another privacy tool that offers so much protection with so little effort.