Service launched in 2023 to track leaked personal data will close early next year<\/p>\n
Google is to retire its Dark Web Report tool early next year, shutting down\u00a0a service intended to alert people when their personal information appears\u00a0in illicit data dumps on the hidden corners of the internet.<\/p>\n
According to Google,\u00a0scanning for new dark web data will end<\/a> on 15 January 2026 and the feature will be completely shut down on 16 February 2026, with all associated user data deleted from Google\u2019s servers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Dark Web Report was first introduced in March 2023 as part of Google\u2019s efforts to help customers keep tabs on their digital footprints. It monitored whether email addresses or other personal details like names, phone numbers and addresses showed up in reported data breaches and dark web lists, then notified the account holder if matches were found.<\/p>\n The recent email from Google says that, “While the report offered general information, feedback showed that it did not provide helpful next steps. We’re making this change to instead focus on tools that give you more clear, actionable steps to protect\u00a0your information online. We\u2019ll continue to track and defend you from online threats, including the dark web, and build tools that help protect you and your personal information.”<\/p>\n A screenshot of Google’s email to users who engaged with the feature<\/em><\/p>\n Although the Dark Web Report is going, Google says it will continue efforts to protect people\u2019s information behind the scenes and is encouraging users to use\u00a0other built-in tools such as Security Checkup<\/a>, Passkeys<\/a>, Password Manager<\/a>,\u00a0two-step verification and\u00a0Google Authenticator<\/a>,\u00a0to improve account safety. The company also highlights features like \u201cResults about you\u201d, which helps people find and sometimes remove personal information from search results.\u00a0<\/p>\n For users currently signed up to the dark web monitoring service, Google\u2019s emails and support pages make clear that access will end once the shutdown takes effect, and those who want to remove their monitoring profiles sooner can do so through their account settings.<\/p>\n In case you\u00a0want to remove your dark web monitoring profile early, you can head into your account right now and delete the data manually: “Dark Web Report page > Edit monitoring profile > Delete monitoring profile.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Service launched in 2023 to track leaked personal data will close early next year Google is to retire its Dark Web Report tool early next year, shutting down\u00a0a service intended to alert people when their personal information appears\u00a0in illicit data dumps on the hidden corners of the internet. According to Google,\u00a0scanning for new dark web […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/google1759381665-0\/google1759381665-0-640x480.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}