A very, very interesting change in Google’s privacy policy. And it’s by remembering that it’s not so long ago the development of the right to be forgotten was necessary, as a legal rule, so the search engine had to eliminate results with personal information. It is true that at the other extreme we find the interest of many not only to appear in the search results, but also in the best positions.

Be that as it may, one of the big demands of users on Google is to have more control over their data. And at this point it is true that in fact the search engine only mediates by indexing the content which 100% of the time it was published by third parties. It is true that Google gives it more visibility, of course, but we must not forget that the origin of the data is the one who has the ultimate control over the presence of said data on the Internet.

So we have to understand that although Google gives more visibility to information (which is really the very reason for being an indexer and a search engine), this is only part of the explanation for why the Right to Be Forgotten Act, as well as similar regulations that may be drafted in other geographies, they point to Google, not the origin of the data. The next part, and which has at least the same weight as the previous one, is that it is much easier to go to Google than to the people responsible for many websiteswhich also meet different legal frameworks depending on their country of origin.

In other words, if you Google your name tomorrow and find a page with your information that you don’t want to publish, but it’s impossible (or very difficult) to find out who is responsible for it, even more so ask them to remove said information. and it is potentially impossible to make this claim but through the courts, in which case the main (if not the only) resource available to you is to ask Google to stop indexing it and therefore display it in search results.

In Europe it is already allowed, as already indicated, by the law on the right to be forgotten, approved in 2014 and similar regulations in other regions, although in some cases its negative effects are questioned, although it is necessary to request it from the company by filling out a form , in which our identity is proven and the reason for deletion is justified. However, as we can read on Engadget, that will soon change from then on Google is going to improve the visibility of users about the presence of information about them and subsequently make it easier to delete it.

This new approach to user privacy is built on “Results About You”, a new tool that allows users to request the removal of their physical address, phone number and email address with just a few clicks, and will “grow” next year, allowing you to set up privacy alerts. This in turn will allow Google to request its removal in a more agile way.

Yes, it’s true that, at least for now, Results About You will only allow you to quickly delete the aforementioned data, but also it will serve as an access point to the delete functions of other result typeswhich will undoubtedly significantly facilitate a process that is still somewhat complex today, especially for private users.