Googling yourself now leads to personal privacy controls
June 02, 2016  02:29
Soon, all you'll need to do is Google yourself if you're wondering how deeply Google has been digging into your digital life.
In coming weeks, a shortcut to personal account information will appear at the top of Google's search results whenever logged-in users enter their own names in the query box.
The feature is part of an update to the "My Account" hub that Google introduced a year ago to make it easier for people to manage the privacy and security controls on the internet company's services. While Google isn't making any additional information available, it is making it easier to find.
The link to personal accounts will appear at the top right of the listings for searches done on personal computers and at the top of requests entered on smartphones.
Google is making the change because it learned that many users doing a "vanity search" under their name wanted a quicker way to find out what the company knew about them, as well as to see how they are depicted on various sites across the internet, said Guemmy Kim, a Google product manager.
A new feature on Google's mobile app will also quickly take users to their account information with a spoken request. All that will be required are the words: "OK Google, show me my Google account." This option initially will only be available in English.
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