Google

Google is ending its ‘dark web report’ feature

The feature won’t be available starting February 16, 2026.

by
Ronil Thakkar
December 16, 2025

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Google has announced it’s pulling the plug on its “dark web report” feature.

Starting February 16, 2026, the tool will officially ride off into the digital sunset, taking its scans, alerts, and mildly alarming emails with it.

When Google first rolled out dark web reports about a year and a half ago, the idea sounded great on paper.

The feature promised to scour the murkier corners of the internet for leaked personal information, email addresses, phone numbers, names, even Social Security numbers, and let users know if their data had wandered somewhere it definitely shouldn’t be.

For privacy-conscious users, it felt like a digital smoke alarm for identity theft.

In practice, though, the alarm mostly just screamed “Something’s wrong!” and then left the room.

According to Google’s support page, feedback revealed the tool “didn’t provide helpful next steps.”

Reddit users, never shy with opinions, echoed that frustration. Many said the alerts lacked specifics, like which sites were affected, making it hard to take meaningful action.

One commenter summed it up neatly: the feature felt like being warned your house might be on fire, but without an address, a hose, or even confirmation that there’s actually smoke.

Google says it’s shutting down the feature to focus on tools that offer clearer, more actionable protection.

The company insists it’s still watching the dark web on users’ behalf, just without the now-defunct report.

Instead, it’s nudging people toward existing options like Security Checkup, Password Manager, and Password Checkup, which alert users when saved passwords are exposed in breaches.

Users learned about the shutdown via email, first spotted by 9to5Google.

Scanning for new breaches will stop on January 16, 2026, with the full shutdown following a month later. All related data will be deleted from Google’s servers.

If you’ve been using the feature and want out early, you can delete your monitoring profile through “Results with your info.”

Consider it one last bit of housekeeping before Google sweeps this particular experiment under the rug, another reminder that even in Big Tech, not every bright idea survives the feedback section.