Google is expanding its policy of deleting certain personal information

This is a sensible but significant change for Internet users: Google announced on Wednesday, April 27 that, under certain conditions, pages containing personal information such as phone numbers and email addresses may be removed from the list. -email, a mailing address or secret login credentials.

“The Internet is constantly evolving – information appears in unexpected places, and new ways to tool it – so our privacy policy [des utilisateurs] Should develop further “, Written in blog post Google Search Global Policy Manager Michelle Chang. Objective stated by the company: Harassment or “doxing” is the practice of tracking information about a person’s personal life and exposing it to the Internet in order to harm him.

In fact, Google has already made it possible to delete some sensitive information, such as a social security number or bank details, under certain conditions: the Internet user must be subject to “threats” or information about the withdrawal request. Third parties in the context of harassment campaigns. These conditions remain the same, but the list of information that may be the subject of a request for withdrawal goes on and on Page dedicated to this question In the search engine help center.

13% of requests are successful

“We will continue to evaluate all content on the affected page [par la demande de retrait] To ensure that we do not restrict the provision of useful information, for example, in newspaper articlesSays Michelle Chang. We will also review whether such content exists in public documents, government sites, or other official sources. If so, we will not proceed with the withdrawal. ⁇

For the tech company, on the one hand, there is the idea of ​​finding the right balance with formal withdrawal requests and, on the other hand, annoying to those involved but it aims to eliminate the necessary components. Public interest. At present, only 13% of the listed requests are successful, explains Ms.^Me Song In an interview with Reuters news agency. However, the official expects the new policy in place to increase this rate.

In this interview, the head of Google recalled that, like his blog post, the information that appears on the pages of search engines does not disappear from the Internet: for example, we often find this information through other engines. To see if the information disappears permanently, it is a good idea to contact the site that provided it directly.