Since its launch in March, Google Voice allowed users to post voice mail transcripts on public Web pages, so that they could share the content of the messages with others.

While Google Voice users will be able to continue this practice, the voice mail text will now be off-limits to search engine crawlers.

"We can certainly understand people would want to make their voice mails public on their own sites, but not necessarily searchable directly outside of their own website. We made a change to prevent these voice mails from being crawled so their content will not be indexed," a Google spokeswoman said via e-mail.

Google apparently implemented the change at least several weeks ago, according to in the Google Voice Help Forum.

However, the issue came to light on Monday when technology news site Engadget some of the voice mail transcripts in search results.