Previously, users would have had to offer serious evidence of a threat of potential harm such as doxxing or identity theft for personal data to have been removed from the search engine. Now, it is a mere click of a button.
Google’s vice president of the trust, Danielle Romain, wrote in a blog post: “For many people, a key element of feeling safer and more private online is having greater control over where their sensitive, personally-identifiable information can be found.”
Not every request will automatically be guaranteed approval. If your details are considered to be “newsworthy” or if they are included on an official source such as a government website, they might not be removed.
The company said: “It’s important to note that when we receive removal requests, we will evaluate all content on the web page to ensure that we’re not limiting the availability of other information that is broadly useful, for instance in news articles.”
This could affect other aspects of cookies and tracking. Since losing third-party cookies, affiliates have had to change their approaches so that they are still able to deliver results. Further privacy changes may continue to affect parts of tracks, causing affiliates to need to adjust practices again.