As we know, there is a lot of information about us available via the Google products we use. Including our search histories, location mapping requests, app purchases, and more. Therefore, we should master our own privacy with Google.
To begin, review these articles on privacy:
- When People Will Accept Facial Recognition
- Identity Theft by State
- Digital Privacy Is Still a Big Issue
- Americans Want GDRP-Style Laws
- Becoming More Anonymous Online
Tips to Master Our Own Privacy with Google
Through its various tools, Google has billions of consumer interactions per day. For example, there are about 6 billion Google searches daily. Furthermore, people watch 5 billion YouTube (Google-owned) videos daily. And monthly, more than 150 million people use Google Maps.
With this in mind, consider how much data Google has on each of us. So, how can we be more secure?
Recently,
“For years, Google has kept a record of our internet searches by default. The company hoards that data so it can build detailed profiles on us, which helps it make personalized recommendations for content but also lets marketers better target us with ads. While there have been tools to manually purge our Google search histories, few of us remember to do so.”
“I’m recommending that we all try Google’s new privacy tools. In May, the company introduced an option that lets us automatically delete data related to our Google searches, requests made with its virtual assistant and our location history.”
“During October, Google followed up by expanding the auto-delete ability to YouTube. Also, it will roll out a new private mode for when you’re navigating to a destination with its Google Maps app. Which could come in handy if you’re going somewhere you want to keep secret, like a therapist’s office.”
Auto-deleting search history — “Most of Google’s new privacy controls are in a web tool called My Activity. (Here’s the URL: myactivity.google.com.)
Auto-deleting YouTube history — Click here. And look at the chart below.
Private mode and auto-delete in Google Maps — “Also arriving is a so-called Incognito mode in Google Maps. Toggling this lets you look up and navigate to destinations without creating a location history. It also prevents others from seeing your past searches.”
Its great that google has been putting out options for consumers to have their data controlled. Some companies like “facebook” don’t really know the meaning of privacy. Its a good incentive that google has put out these option so that people can feel a little bit safe, and how they handle the data. To be honest in today’s technology with the use of smart phones, google already collect huge amount of datas and we truly don’t know on ow they use them or sell them to third parties.
My friend found it scary that one day, when she opened the Google map app on her cellphone, before typing in a word, Google map gave her a suggestion of a route to go home and the estimated time span, and at that time, my friend was actually planning to go home! I do not know if this is a case of personal data abuse, but it seems that Google map learns about the daily patterns of its users without permission. I think if Google simply sells the ‘patterned’ data to someone else, it will be really creepy. Google should give user their control on personal data back and should simply ask for permission before doing any analysis.
In today’s age of internet, information become one of the most important and valuable resources. So when we surf on the internet, many websites collected our “footprint” for future use. Such as Google and YouTube, they collected our searching result and send our recommend advertising on all of our devices. I have to say that sometimes these ads are convenient but sometimes are very annoying so that how to protect our online secret has become very important. In this article, author listed some very useful method to avoid online information leakage and I learned a lot from it.