The web giant will make it easier for victims to get help from its search engine.
For some years now, Google has made domestic violence one of its major battles. The company had already taken a stand in 2020 against advertisements touting the use of GPS trackers for monitoring a spouse. This time, it is directly in its search engine, which records nearly 7 billion searches every day (source Statista 2021) that the Alphabet subsidiary intends to act.
Starting today, searches related to domestic violence in the United States will automatically show a dialog box providing contact information for the National Domestic Violence Hotline. By typing certain keywords, such as “my boyfriend hits me”, “domestic violence” Where “abuse”, the American giant’s search engine will put Internet users directly in touch with an emergency telephone number, or a dedicated chat. Detailed at length in an official blog post, this new decision by Google hopes to succeed in help more concretely, but above all more quickly victims of domestic violence, when they finally have the brief opportunity to call for help.
Available in English, Spanish, and 200 additional languages through interpreters, this hotline promoted by Google will have the objective of helping the victim in his efforts, but will also provide advice specifically dedicated to the Internet, such as the deletion of the browsing history, or the creation of ‘a private email account, which will allow you to correspond securely with the competent help services.
A long-term fight, recalls Google. In the United States alone, more than 12 million people are victims of domestic violence and domestics. A figure that concerns one in four women and one in seven men during their lifetime. With the pandemic and successive confinements, intra-family abuse has only increased, exacerbating physical, but also psychological risk factors. Through this partnership between Google and the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the world’s leading search engine ensures that when they call for help, victims are automatically redirected to reliable and useful resources.
As a reminder, this is already the case for the keyword suicide. The Internet user is then offered the telephone number of SOS friendships, which aid people in psychological distress. It would be interesting if Google also offered this kind of functionality on equally sensitive subjects such as abortion.
