On Thursday, Google unveiled some important new features in its search engine to help users control their personal information, privacy, and online security.
Last year, the American tech giant launched the “Results about you” tool to facilitate the removal of search results containing user’s personal phone numbers, home addresses, or email addresses directly from the Google app or anywhere users can access the search engine.
Now, Google has updated and significantly improved the tool to help users track their personal contact information in search results and receive alerts when it appears, so they can remove it if necessary.
The company stated in a blog post, “In the coming days, we will launch a new control panel that allows you to see if web results containing your contact information appear in the search engine or not.”
After that, users can quickly request the removal of these results directly from the “Results about you” tool.
Google also mentioned that it will notify users when new web results containing their contact information appear in the search engine to provide them with additional peace of mind.
Users can access this tool in the Google app by clicking on their profile picture, then clicking on “Results about you,” or by visiting the tool’s link.
Google previously announced a new precautionary measure to protect users and their families from unintentionally encountering explicit images in search results, with the new update, explicit content images will now be virtually blurred when they appear in search results, the company said that setting up image blurring and safe search is available to all users worldwide this month.
The company emphasized that users can adjust their settings and turn them off at any time unless a guardian or school network administrator locks the settings.
Google is also working on making parental control tools easier to find directly in the search, users can simply type in a related query, such as “Google parental controls” or “Google Family Link,” and a box with information on how to manage parental control tools will appear.
Additionally, Google now relies on its protective measures to enable users to remove any of their personal images containing nudity that they no longer wish to appear in the search engine.
The company stated, “For example, if you created explicit content and uploaded it to a website, then deleted it, you can request its removal from the search engine if it was published elsewhere without your consent,” The company noted that this policy does not apply to the content that users are currently promoting.
