About Local Services data

Your Data in North America

All phone calls, emails and text-based communications delivered through Google may be monitored or recorded to detect spam or fraudulent behaviour and to improve quality, support policies and research, subject to Google's privacy policy. This includes new or follow-up calls, texts or email-based communications between consumers and providers that are forwarded through Google’s systems.

How your information is used by Google

Google reviews emails, texts or call recordings routed through Google’s system on a limited basis for the following purposes:

To resolve billing disputes
To bill Local Services advertisers for leads
To enforce policies that protect consumers and providers against misrepresentation or poor conduct (see examples)
To detect spam and fraudulent behaviour
To resolve Google Guarantee disputes
To collect customer feedback
Product improvement
To monitor overall customer and provider experience on the platform

If a consumer sends their contact information (such as name, phone number or email address) to a provider through Local Services, their information is stored by Google for a limited time so that the consumer and the provider can communicate.

If a consumer requests a Google Guarantee reimbursement, Google will request consumer permission to review Google’s call or message records in order to confirm that the consumer contacted the provider through Local Services Ads.

Provider responsibility for consumer data in North America

When a consumer contacts a provider via Local Services, Google sends the provider the consumer’s phone number (if available), date and time of the call or message, the message’s content and duration of the call.

Providers may review call recordings in order to track conversations and dispute charges. Google does not monitor or control how providers use the recordings.

Additionally, while interacting with consumers on the Local Services platform, providers may choose to independently record calls or messages and collect consumer information, such as a consumer’s phone number or email address, under the provider’s company’s privacy policies.

Google is not responsible for any data stored outside of Google, and can’t guarantee its deletion. Providers are responsible for developing appropriate measures to delete consumer data from their systems.

Requests to delete consumer data (North America)

You can request to delete your phone number, the record of your call or your messages from Google by contacting support. You can also request to remove your messages from Google through the My Activity page in your Google account.

What deleting data does (North America)

Deleting your contact information:

Removes the ability of providers to contact you through Local Services
Removes your contact information from records related to your Local Services requests
Removes the content of messages related to your Local Services requests
Will not affect anonymised or aggregated information related to Local Services requests

For more information about how Google collects and uses data, see Google’s privacy policy.

Deleting data consumer outside of Google

Local Services providers and partner affiliates may independently collect information – such as a consumer's phone number, email address or their own call recordings – under their privacy policy.

Google is not responsible for data stored outside of Google, and cannot guarantee its deletion. Consumers must contact the provider directly for further information about accessing or deleting their data from a provider's systems.

Data retention in North America

Call recordings and messages are retained up to 180 days before they are destroyed. Recordings and messages in legal verticals are retained for 60 days.

Consumer data outside North America

When a consumer clicks to call or message a Local Services provider, the communication is routed through Google. Google will retain the consumer's phone number (if available), the date and time of the communication, the duration of the call and the context of the text message, and will pass the same information on to the service provider that the consumer selected to contact.

How consumer information is used by Google

Google retains data from calls routed through Google's systems on a limited basis to confirm that a consumer contacted the provider via Local Services if the consumer requests a Google Guarantee reimbursement. In this case, Google will need to view the details of the call. In addition, Google may also use this call data for the following purposes:

To accurately bill Local Services advertisers
To enforce policies that protect consumers and providers against misrepresentation or poor conduct (see examples)
To detect spam and fraudulent behaviour
For product improvement
To assess overall consumer and provider experience on the platform

If a consumer requests a Google Guarantee reimbursement, Google will request the consumer's permission to review Google’s call records in order to confirm that the consumer contacted the provider via the Local Services unit.

Requests to delete consumer data (outside North America)

What deleting data does (outside North America)

Deleting your phone number and details of your call:

Removes the ability of providers to contact you through Local Services
Removes your phone number from records related to your Local Services requests
Removes the content of messages related to your Local Services requests
Will not affect anonymised or aggregated information related to Local Services requests