Removing your personal information from Google search results is becoming simpler. Google released its Results About You tool last year, allowing users to keep track of the personal information that appears about them when they conduct a Google search. The tool makes it simple to ask that unwelcome explicit photographs linked to your name and some “personal information”—such as your email address, home address, or phone number—be taken out of search results.

A dashboard that displays you what contact information is appearing in Google searches is the newest addition to this collection of tools. The new method can also notify you when fresh search results with your personal information surface.

You will see these methods for erasing personal data as a logged-in Google user. Simply click on your user profile image in the top-right corner of any Google page to get the Results About You option. The revised dashboard is then displayed to you. If the dashboard isn’t immediately visible, you can still use the standard method of Googling your name to obtain personal information in search results. Consumers in the US will start receiving the dashboard this week. If a search result includes your home address, email, or phone number, you may choose it by clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the result.

You’ll notice a button that says “Remove Result.” Google will ask you to provide a reason after you choose it. Choose if the information is obsolete, contains personal contact information, or is intended to cause you harm from the list of possible reasons to remove the result.

You can submit a request using this stand-alone removal form if you don’t have a Google account or simply don’t want to sign in to one. When you make a request, Google will send you an email with a link to check on its status. If you’re logged in, the dashboard will display the status of all your requests. This blog post from Google describes the new features.

These upgraded tools won’t help you if you want to fully disappear from Google searches. They are simply intended to make it simple for you to request that Google remove your personal data, such as your email address, phone number, and street address, from search results. They might still be accessible online, but it will be more difficult to find them.

Google also amended its policies this week to enable users to ask for the removal of nonconsensual explicit photographs of themselves from searches, regardless of whether the images were taken or shared without consent. One policy change worth noting is that you can now ask for the removal of specific images from search results if you consentorily posted nude photos online, deleted the originals, and then saw someone else repost them.

Here is some further news that circulated online this week.

Tattered threads

Last month, Meta’s new-ish Twitter clone, Threads, launched and in its first week attracted more than 100 million users to sign up. Since then, Elon Musk’s Twitter has kept up its recent trend of falling over itself as it stumbles through an X-rated rebranding into some sort of hybrid social-finance-whatever app. After an explosive start, Threads appeared poised to challenge Twitter’s dominance. Though Threads has not quite developed into the Twitter killer many anticipated, its opponent has just discovered the power to hemorrhage goodwill.

In a company meeting, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that Threads had lost more than half of its members in the week following its peak buzz, and that number has fallen even further since. Zuckerberg didn’t appear surprised by the sudden decline, claiming that more people have stayed than he anticipated. Though a large portion of it is pushed by uninteresting brands and Instagram influencers, content is still being produced on Threads. Twitter continues to operate in the interim—damn you, X.

View the Speaker

You didn’t really believe there wouldn’t be any mention of AI in a news roundup these days, did you?

In other Meta-machinations, the Facebook and Instagram corporation wants to use AI chatbots to improve its services. The Financial Times reports that there would be about 30 different personas available for the bots. They’ll be waiting there on the social app sidebars for you to hound them with questions.