What personal data Google collects about you and how to prevent it

On the one hand, the Internet has long become a necessary tool, and an account is perceived as a personal space. Social networks, maps, search bar - we consider all this to be ours. On the other hand, specific services belong to companies that are interested in using user information for their own purposes.

What to do in such a situation? Of course, you can throw away all your gadgets and go live in a remote village. Then Big Brother will definitely not get to you. However, if this option is too radical for you, you need to figure out which data does not belong only to you and how to protect it.

Places you visit

Location history stores a list of the places you've visited. From a service point of view, this helps to improve the performance of Google Maps, but it may come as a surprise to you how much the system remembers.

The chronology of the places you visited is available here. You can change or delete both a single entry and the entire history. You can also clear location history and delete pictures uploaded to Google Photos.

Search history

The search history is saved on all devices from which the user logged into his Google account. Even if you delete history on one device, the system will keep the data on others.

You can view all your activity here. A month ago, at two o'clock in the morning, you were wondering "what happens if you pour water into boiling oil"? Google doesn't forget anything. You can clear the history and customize what information will be saved, but you have to do it manually.

Application history

Google keeps track of every app and extension you use. This means that the system is aware of when you go to bed, go to the movies, read books, or look for work.

This works both ways: many installed apps have access to a Google account. If any of them seem unreliable, it makes sense to deny them access to information. To do this, you need to click on the "Close access" button in the application summary.

YouTube requests

Google remembers what and when you searched YouTube. This means that the company is aware of what movie reviews you watch, what cosmetics you use and what tasks you cannot solve without video instructions. Sherlock Holmes would even have guessed when a user entered the site drunk - from typos.

Refresh your YouTube search history. You can delete certain requests by clicking on the cross next to each of them, or clear the entire history (in the menu on the right), or disable saving altogether.

Advertising for you personally

Personal information is used to set up targeted advertising, which allows advertisers to make a selection according to certain parameters: geolocation, gender, age, search queries. The system remembers what products you have viewed in online stores, so the browser may well display ads for the products you were looking for on AliExpress.

The ad personalization feature is disabled here. To disable personalization even after deleting cookies, install a special plugin. However, if you really want to see ads targeted at you, you don't have to.

All user data stored by Google can be downloaded or placed in the cloud. The Guardian writes that in his case the archive weighed more than 5 GB. Check how large the archive with your account data will be.

This information includes bookmarks, letters, contacts, calendar events, books and games, files from Google Drive, photos from your phone, passwords … Having gained access to someone else's account, you can find out almost everything about a person.

Unfortunately, no one can guarantee that the data will not end up with third parties. And an attacker can use them in a variety of ways, from blackmail to theft.

We consider our account to be something like an apartment, where we do not let anyone in without an invitation. But in fact, it also performs the function of an office, shop, cinema, library. Therefore, you need to, at a minimum, carefully read the documentation, which is usually ignored, do not store truly confidential information on the Internet and do not be lazy to configure services yourself. If you don't, nobody will.