You know how you Google, say ‘purple shirt’ and the next thing you know is you're inundated with ads about purple shirts? You're speaking to a friend about buying a new phone and suddenly phone ads will start to pop up while you play a word game? This is because Google is like that old Police song – Every Breath You Take. Every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, every single day, every word you say, every game you play (Google) will be watching you. So what can you do about it?
Every time you use Google Assistant by saying ‘OK Google’ you're literally asking Google to listen to you. Even otherwise, tech experts say that Google is ‘listening’ for certain keywords to give you more targeted ads. And therefore the ads about the purple shirt or the new phone. Also if the location on your phone is turned on, Google knows where you are all at any given time.
When you use Google Maps, it knows where you want to go, whether you're using public transport or your own vehicle, when you leave, when you arrive and so on. This helps Google collect data about your preferences and it also helps Google know about traffic and road situation; information it can help other users with.
When you visit My Google Activity, you can see the details of whatever you’ve done online: the websites you visited, the apps you used, games you played, news apps you used. This includes things you did on your desktop and your phone. Online shopping sites, the music you heard, your social media activity, online shopping, secure checkouts, even if you clicked on an ad accidentally, YouTube history – it’s all there in the list. If you visited another city last month, the mall last week and took a walk or outdoor bike ride yesterday, it's in your Location History and you can see the route you took.
Now is all this sinister? Not necessarily. Yes most of us don’t know what Google knows about us and most of us are clueless about when, if ever we consented to all this surveillance.
But here’s how I understand this. It isn't as if someone is sitting and listening to and watching me and my Google activity all day. Data is being collected but it isn't as though someone is spying on me specifically 24x7. My information on Google is largely protected. Unless someone hacks into Google with some nefarious purpose – a fraudster or some person in authority wanting to implicate me in something, my info is unlikely to be misused.
Yes while Google does use my information to sell me more and more stuff – much of which I don’t need - I do have the option to control my Google activity. You can go to Activity Control where you can Manage Activity – see and delete past activity: of the past hour, day, all activity or custom range. You can delete by activity or app. There is also an Auto Delete option that you can activate to automatically delete activity older than three months and so on.
You can also switch off Google Assistant and turn off the phone GPS to restrict what Google knows about you and your activity. Will things be less convenient? Yes. Will you feel more secure? That is a question only you know the answer to.
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