Google’s dark web report is being eliminated. This is what you need to know.

A woman walks by a giant screen with a logo at an event at the Paris Google Lab on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

Google will soon discontinue its dark web report, a free service that scans the dark web for users’ personal information.

In an emailed statement to Google dark web report users on Monday, the tech company announced it will stop monitoring for new results on Jan. 15, 2026, and the data will no longer be available as of Feb. 16, 2026. It claims that the feedback the tool provided didn’t give users helpful next steps.

“We’re making this change to instead focus on tools that give you more clear, actionable steps to protect your information online,” Google wrote to its users. “We will continue to track and defend you from online threats, including the dark web, and build tools that help protect you and your personal information.”

It offered other existing Google tools to help bulk up security and privacy online including Privacy Checkups, Passkey, 2-Step Verification, Google Password Manager, and Password Checkup

“We provide billions of users with many actionable security notices and reports such as phishing warnings, password checkups and malicious account activity reports that they can address directly, all of which are important security protections,” a statement from Google to CTVNews.ca said.

“But we received feedback that this particular dark web report was confusing and not actionable in any way by users, so we’re stopping it to focus on providing actionable reports and warnings. We’ll continue to be a leader in tracking and defending against online threats, including on the dark web.”

Users must be vigilant: tech expert

Melissa Leong is the author of “Happy Go Money,” a book on smart budgeting, spending and investing. She told CTVNews.ca on Monday that when it comes to protecting your personal financial information from the dark web, which she likened to a flea market for stolen information, people need to be cautious and informed.

“You need to be vigilant when it comes to online safety and sharing your personal information, and understanding what kind of personal information is out there that belongs to you,” she said.

Leong advises people to check their credit score on a regular basis through credit report agencies like Equifax and TransUnion. She stressed the importance of a two-step authenticator, a security method that requires users to provide different forms of ID before they can access an account. She also recommends using robust passwords for personal accounts with sensitive information.

In the meantime, Leong said Google account users should take the opportunity to log into their accounts and look at the dark web report while it’s still available.

“Google isn’t turning off safety. It’s turning off the smoke alarm,” she said. “Google is basically saying that the reason why it’s turning off this alarm is because it didn’t tell you any helpful information. It didn’t tell you where the extinguisher was.”