Hello Local Guides Connect Moderation Team, I am writing to formally request a Google Administrator or Moderator to please manually remove and unenroll my account from the Google Maps Local Guides program. I no longer wish to be a part of this program under any circumstances, and I want all levels, points, badges, and local guide statuses completely deleted from my public Google profile. The official opt-out link “google.com/localguides/optout” is completely broken and currently redirects to the main home page without giving any option to leave. I was explicitly advised by a Diamond Product Expert on the Google Maps Help Forum to post my request here so that a Google Admin can process this removal directly from the backend database. Please help me to delete my Local Guides profile while keeping my standard Google Maps account completely clean. Thank you for your support and immediate assistance.
There has been some changes. We no longer need to signup. Instead all Maps users making contributions are automatically becoming a Local Guide.
Hence the opt-out form has also been removed.
I asked about this and was told that removing your contributions is now the only way to remove your title Local Guide is to remove your contributions. This will work if you only added photos and reviews. They can get deleted. But contributions like edits, new places and roads can not be undone.
So I can conclude that there is no way to fix this for you as all the contributions you made are not some that can be undone.
Would you mind explain why you want to stop being a Local Guide?
Thank you for the clarification, Moderator. I understand the new policy, but I do not want to just hide my activity; I want my account to be completely and permanently removed from the Local Guides program. This is my primary Gmail account, and due to strict personal privacy and security reasons, I absolutely do not want to be a part of this program under any circumstances. Since some of my past edits cannot be undone and the automated opt-out link has been removed, I request that a Google Admin please access my backend data and completely delete my Local Guides profile. I want to retain only a standard, clean Google Maps account.
Since none of your contributions can be traced to you, I suggest you consider to change your display name on Maps.
That way no one can find your name.
You have already made your profile restricted.
And none of your 3 types of contributions will show as linked to your account.
Most importantly you should avoid ever sharing any photos or reviews on Maps to protect your identity.
I have personally been sceptical of this “forced” enrollment so let me tag @Latika_Malhotra for clarification on this.
One more question: Do you manage a business on Google Maps? If so, this might be a relevant argument for Google.
And let me tag @ErmesT, he might see this differently than me.
No, I do not manage any business profile on Google Maps. This is purely my personal, primary Gmail account that I use for my daily life. Because this is my private personal account, I feel very strongly about having my data completely and permanently removed from the Local Guides program, rather than just keeping my profile restricted. I do not want to be enrolled in a program that I cannot manually opt out of. Thank you, Morten, for understanding my privacy concerns and for tagging the internal team and Google-Admins for clarification. I sincerely hope the technical team can access the backend database to completely delete my Local Guides profile and restore my standard Google Maps account.
Thank you for the support, Morten. I want to update you that I have successfully deleted all of my photos and reviews from Google Maps as suggested. However, because of my past map edits, my account is still forcefully enrolled in the Local Guides program, and my points or level are not completely reset to zero.
Since it is technically impossible for me to undo those map edits from my end, I urgently request the tagged Google Administrators (@Latika_Malhotra and @ErmesT) to please intervene from the backend database. This is my primary personal Gmail account linked to all my critical documents and banks, so I cannot change or delete this account. I am not satisfied with just hiding or restricting my profile; I need my primary account to be completely separated and permanently purged from the Local Guides program database. Please help me with a hard-reset from the backend.
@Niranjan3
Welcome to Connect, and thank you for asking.
However, the reply given by @MortenCopenhagen is correct. Actually every person with a Google Account is also a Local Guide, even if she/he never contributed in Google Maps.
In any case, as you deleted all your photos and reviews, there is no way for anyone to track back your account, because edits and places added are not publicly visible, and impossible to be associated with you.
On the other side there is no way to delete the edits. If you added a place and the place physically do exists, it doesn’t makes any sense to delete it from Maps.
This is what we can see about you on Maps:
An empty box. And impossible to reach other than having a direct link to the account in Google Maps.
If you also change your username, like Morten suggested, you will be completely “anonymized”.
The new name will not modify anything on your Google Accounts, but only the name displayed in Google Maps.
On the other side, the [now removed] output form was not deleting any of your contribution. It was simply removing your Local Guides status, while keeping your contributions visible and associated to the account.
So not a real way to improve your privacy, especially if your concern is your personal safety.
As we all know a media or a review is always visible on the POI where we added it, so by deleting them you are already untraceable
Thank you for your detailed response, ErmesT. While I understand your technical explanation about my profile appearing as an “empty box,” I absolutely refuse to accept this forced enrollment policy.
Technology is built to serve human choice, not to trap users inside a system against their explicit will. Providing a “restricted profile” or a “hidden box” is merely an illusion of privacy—it is not true privacy. True data privacy means the absolute Right to be Forgotten and the right to have an account entirely purged from a specific program’s database.
Forcing users to remain linked to a program just because they made map contributions in the past is highly unethical, a clear violation of user autonomy, and a breach of basic consumer rights. If Google has the technological power to track the entire world, it certainly has the power to permanently delete a single profile from a specific database without breaking the map’s architecture.
Let this be my final stance and a direct ultimatum to the Google Admins and product teams: Trapping people in a community they have chosen to leave is an unacceptable and deceptive practice. I demand an immediate, permanent backend purge of my Local Guides status. I will not compromise on my privacy, and I expect Google to manually execute this deletion from the backend without further excuses.
I fully understand what you mean, @Niranjan3 , and in some way I believe you are correct.
What I was suggesting is what you can do right now, but I hope in the future what you suggest can be implemented, so thanks for raising this issue