Is Google’s Dark Web Monitoring Enough? [Tested]

Google One’s dark web report is a service that Google offers for free that scans the dark web for your information and reports back where it’s found. The service itself isn’t very robust and doesn’t assist in any way with data removal. It does, however, alert you to where your information was found and offers tips on how to stay safe.

We prefer the best data removal services to Google One’s dark web report. A data removal service can automate the removal process, provide additional monitoring features, and even help with identity theft protection. We tested Google One’s dark web report ourselves to let you know what worked and where we found Google lacking.

Is Google’s free dark web scan good enough?

If you’re looking for comprehensive dark web scanning, we don’t think Google’s free tool will capture all of it.

Don’t get us wrong. The dark web report returns results for some personal information, like your Social Security number, if that data is found on the dark web. It also gives you options for how to protect that data. These are the hallmarks of a good, basic data monitoring service.

More complex and robust data monitoring services include automation that will take you directly to websites with compromised credentials, help remove data from data broker sites, continually monitor the regular and dark web for your information, and even offer identity theft protection.

Google One Dark Web Report pros and cons

Best data removal services with dark web monitoring

If you’re looking for a robust identity product, you’ll want the best dark web monitoring, data broker removal, and identity theft protection. Removing your data from data brokers across the web can help reduce spam, scams, phishing, and even identity theft.

DeleteMe, Incogni, and Aura all offer data broker removal services with continuous monitoring to make sure your information stays private. Aura kicks it up a notch by including identity theft protection and remediation services. You can see more comparisons between the services in the table below.

How to use Google One’s dark web monitoring

Setting up Google One’s dark web monitoring is easy and takes less than 2 minutes. We did it from the browser on our phone, but you can use your phone or computer’s browser.

Make sure you’re logged into a personal Google account and not a work or commercial one, then follow the link below to get started.

1. In your chosen browser, go to the dark web report.
2. Scroll to the bottom and click Start monitoring.
3. Select the information you want to monitor.
4. Click Allow.
5. Confirm your selections and add additional information if you want.
6. Click Done.

What is Google One’s dark web report?

We didn’t give Google extensive personal information about us, mainly because we know Google has had issues with privacy before, but we allowed the basic information to be monitored. It returned a report with results that showed that our name, phone number, email, passwords, usernames, and gender were found on the dark web. A drop-down menu revealed our address was also found.

Unfortunately, when we tried to click on these categories to do more, the only assistance we received was the suggested next steps. There weren’t any links to help us easily remediate our information.

This was frustrating because it meant that we’d have to do way more work to get all of these records taken down manually.

FAQs

Bottom line

Google One’s dark web report is a good jumping-off point if you’re new to dark web scanning. Considering it isn’t very robust, you’ll either spend a lot of time trying to fix the issues it reports, or you’ll end up getting one of the best data removal services to help automate the process and make your life easier. We suggest the latter.

Reducing the amount of personal information floating around the dark web and the internet in general can protect you from spam, scams, phishing, fraud, and even identity theft. In the age of digital information exchange, protecting your identity has become even more important than ever.