Google Dark Web Monitoring Feature Won’t Be Exclusive To One Subscribers Anymore

Google has been monitoring the dark web leaks of stolen account information for Google One subscribers for around a year now. These stolen account information include phone numbers and physical addresses. From the end of this month, Google’s dark web reports will be made available to anyone with a Google account. As per a Google support page about the said transition, this free service will be accessible on Google’s ‘Results about you’ page.

If you go to the ‘Results about you’ section now, you will be able to check for information Google has indexed that contains personal contact info like your home address, phone number, or email address. In the same section, you will be able to request it be removed so that it won’t appear in search results. As per Google, this move will create a ‘combined solution to help users protect their online presence’.

Both paid and free services including ‘Have I Been Pwned?’ will scan the dark web for your data and send you alerts. However, as for Google users, bringing the company’s two monitoring features together into a single place to see potential personal information leaks does make sense.

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No Point In Subscribing To Google One Anymore Except For Extra Storage?

This means that the perks added last spring for the over 100 million Google One subscribers (starting at $1.99 per month) have been removed. Last month, Google announced that its VPN by Google One service, another addition, will shut down later this year.

While these perks likely weren’t the primary reasons for signing up for Google One, it can be disheartening to see benefits disappear without a corresponding price reduction.

The main draw for subscribing to Google One is the additional storage for your Google account, which includes photos and Gmail. Other benefits include premium Google Meet video calling features, the ability to share your storage with up to five people, and enhanced appointment scheduling in Google Calendar. However, these perks are not particularly compelling. Google’s Gemini-powered AI features might be worth considering, but they are only available at higher tiers of Google One, starting at $19.99 per month.