People are selling your home address online. This privacy tool will help

There’s a free automated tool that removes information about you from Google search results. For some reason, most people don’t use it.

Did you know an untold number of companies are selling your name, home address, phone number and more online? Data brokers, as they’re called, hand your information to anyone who wants it dirt cheap, from telemarketers and jealous exes to identity thieves. It puts your safety at risk.

But there’s a tool that makes this information harder to find. It’s a free service run by Google called Results About You. The problem is a lot of people don’t seem to know about it.

Google constantly scrapes the internet to fuel its search engine, including sensitive details swept up from data brokers that you may want to keep secret. Through this process, the company inadvertently exposes you to all kinds of serious risks. But with one button, Results About You lets you ask Google to take your information down. It’s that easy. And the company just updated the service to make it even more useful.

“This is kind of a no-brainer,” says Thorin Klosowski, the security and privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group based in the US. Results About You is one of the most important easy-to-use privacy tools on the market, he says. “In terms of stuff that’s right there, no effort, it’s probably number one. Quick access to this kind of information can be used in ways both grand and small.”

Serenity Strull/ BBC

After you set it up, Google emails you when it finds your name, email, phone number or address. You can review the websites it finds and with a click. In the US, Results About You can also flag Social Security Numbers and passport or driver’s licence details. You need a Google account to use the automated service, but there’s also a manual process if you find sensitive information in search results on your own, and you can use it without an account.