Google announced it would retire its Dark Web Reporting tool in February 2026, less than two years after launching it as a way for users to monitor whether their personal information was found on the dark web.
As a result, scanning for new dark web breaches will stop on January 15, 2026, and this feature will be retired on February 16, 2026.
“While this report provided general information, feedback indicated it did not provide useful next steps,” Google said in a support document. “We are making this change to focus on tools that provide clearer, actionable steps to protect your information online.”
The tech giant said it will delete all data related to Dark Web Reports once it is retired in February, but users will have the option to delete their monitoring profiles beforehand by following the steps below.
Go to Dark Web Report Under “Results containing your information” click on Edit Monitoring Profile Click on “Delete Monitoring Profile” at the bottom -> Delete
The Dark Web Report was released by Google in March 2023 to combat online identity fraud resulting from information stolen through data breaches and made available on the dark web. This report is designed to scan the darknet for personal data such as name, address, email, phone number, social security number, etc. and notify users if it is found.
In July 2024, Google expanded the service beyond Google One subscribers to include all account holders.
Google is also encouraging users to increase the privacy and security of their accounts by creating an anti-phishing multi-factor authentication (MFA) passkey and removing personal information from Google search results through Search Results About You.
Source link
