Google is collecting all the data from its application to make its service better, which we use. Whichever product we are using, either Gmail, Google search or even an android phone, Google keeps eyes on the every activity what we do. The company uses a lot of our personal data to improve its service and the ads. It is very surprising that Google knows about us much more than our thinking.
CNBC, an American Television Channel, explained what Google tracks, what it knows about you, and how to limit what data is stored. It also showed that Google is completely transparent about all the things, what it stores and what the reason is for storing the data. Everything is explained in its privacy page ‘Your Data‘ from where everyone can check what it stores like the things you create, email, calendar event, gender, your phone number, photos on the drive, what videos you watch or search, the ads you click, your location, device information, and IP address and cookie data. From the privacy you can block everything which is tracked by Google. By blocking Google will not be able to control your access and will not be able to show you things of your interest or like.
Here, you’ll find all sorts of data from the privacy data page of Google:
- Name, gender and birth date
- Personal cell phone numbers
- Android Phone or app which you use
- Recent Google searches
- Gmail files including Spam and Trash.
- The visited websites or news or any article
- Exactly where I’ve been or search over the Google Map over the past several years
- The games and the apps which you like
- Where you live or work
- The YouTube videos and searches
- Every time I’ve used my voice to interact with Google Assistant (complete with recordings of my voice.)
Even Google let user to download all of the data including photos, emails, contacts, bookmarks and more. Google also promises that it will keep your data safe during transit between your computer or smart phone and its servers. Its cloud infrastructure protects data and doesn’t give governments or advertisers “direct access” or “backdoor access” to any information.
How can you limit Google for tracking your information?
You can also limit Google for storing your information by visiting to Google my Activity page. All of your activity can be checked on the page which you have done whether on a smart phone or Google home, which site you have visited for how much time, which video you have seen on you tube etc.
You need to be sure to use its Privacy Check-up tool you. If you toggle everything off, Google will stop checking activity.
- Click manages activity from Google Web & Activity Page to limit what Google stores.
- Toggle the button off to manage ad setting from the page Ads Personalization.
- Pause the location button from the Location history page.
- Pause the YouTube Search and YouTube Watch history from the Google activity control page.
How to download everything Google knows about you?
Before deciding to quit or delete your account from Google, if you want to recover all of your data from Google Calendar events, pictures in Google Photos or a copy of every mail from Gmail, you must download everything from Google. It is very easy to download your data from the Google server.
How to download your data from Google:
- Go to https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout
- Select the products which you want to back up.
- Click on the ‘Next’ at the bottom of the page.
- Choose the file format – you can pick a .ZIP file and choose a maximum size.
- Choose your delivery method. via email or sent to Dropbox, Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.
- Tap “Create Archive.”
- You need to have patience. Google warns delivery of the data may take hours or days to create.
Google will collect all of the information which are stored across its products and will send you an alert email including a link or notification regarding the cloud storage services in which data is stored. Now you can see all of your data, photos, calendar files and more.
