The Most Useful Google Feature So Far

In 2022, a new option appeared on Google profiles everywhere called "Results About Me."

I'm not a person who searches their name often, so I ignored the “Results About Me” link on my Google dashboard until I received an automatic push notification from Google on my phone advising me to check it out.

As it turns out, this is a feature which removes your personal data, such as phone number, physical address, and email from sites like Truthfinder. This is something that’s important to me, and I annually set aside time to manually request the removal of my data, but without having any idea that it actually accomplished anything. My data always reappears.

I immediately filled in the information requested by Google to see how this would work. Seven results immediately appeared where my personal data was out there for anyone to see. I requested removal, then put it aside, assuming I would hear back for weeks, if at all.

Not even 24 hours later, I received a notification that the request had been approved. Every few days I receive a notification of a new site turning up with my data, but I keep putting the request in. I’m assuming that after a while it won’t be circulating so frequently, but the Google approval doesn’t have control over the sites who have been requested to delete my info. It just means it’s been requested to be removed, and I’ll have to keep checking back to see if they’ve done it.

Despite this uncertainty, I’m counting on this feature as a net gain, since now I don’t have to take so much time to manually request removal of each instance for the same effect.