Google sends Dark Web Report to its dead services graveyard
Google will soon end its “Dark Web Report”, an email service that alerts users when their personal information appears on the internet’s dark underbelly.
The Chocolate Factory started sending the report in 2023, but last week said it will end the service. Google has no issue with the service’s efficacy – it did a good job of flagging the exposure of user IDs, passwords, and other sensitive info in breach dumps and other data exposure attacks – but feels it didn’t provide the actionable advice it thinks users need.
“While the report offered general information, feedback showed that it didn’t provide helpful next steps,” the company said. “We’re making this change to instead focus on tools that give you more clear, actionable steps to protect your information online.”
What those tools may be is anyone’s guess as Google only pointed users to existing tools for securing their Google accounts, like performing a security checkup, enabling a passkey, Google’s own password manager, and other tools.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance