In the modern interconnected world, Google has far more information about you than most other organizations. Google has influenced millions of lives every day through search history and YouTube views, location tracking, and personalized advertisements, among others. Although this information gathering drives useful functionality, such as custom search results and intelligent suggestions, it also creates some grave privacy implications. Have you ever been wondering how Google knows about you and what it can do to be restricted in its knowledge, you are not the only one. The happy bit: there are simple settings changes that allow you to recover much of your online privacy without being deprived of some basic services.
Prevent Your Web and App Activity Storage.
Google also follows you through Web and App Activity, which logs your searches, websites visited, and app interactions, which is considered to be one of the largest ways that the company keeps track of you. It is the basis of Google search proposals, Maps guesses, and targeted adverts, but you do not need to have it pile up forever. To take back control:
Open Data & Privacy on your Google Account.
Tap Web & App Activity.
Switch the On or Auto-delete after 3 or 18 months.
Switching this off prevents the storage of new information and restricts the amount of past-data stored by Google. It will result in a reduced number of personalized advertisements, less predictive tracking, and a more personal experience of browsing in general without losing the ability to use Gmail, Search, and Maps as regular users.
Turn Off Location Tracking on Google Services.
Google is able to trace your movements at all times when Location History and Location Sharing are turned on even when you are not using a particular app. To ensure that Google does not track your each move:
Go to your Google account in the Visit Location History.
Switch off Turn Location History.
Also open App-level Location Access and select it as While Using or Never per app.
Switching these off prevents Google mapping every place you visit, securing confidential movements such as house, work and travel habits. It is also useful in restricting targeted ads on places which you visit.
Switch Off Personalized Ads in an Account.
One of the reasons why Google gathers such a lot of data are personalized ads. These advertisements are personalized based on your search and location history and activity in your app, and although they might seem useful, they are a significant compromise in terms of privacy as well. To dial back ad tracking:
Log in to your Google Account and go to Data and Privacy.
Select Ad Personalization.
Turn Ad Personalization Off.
This will not remove the ads – you will see those ads anyway, however this way Google will not be able to create a profile of you and target the ads to you.
The Importance of These Settings to Your Digital Privacy.
These changes do not need to involve any deletion of your account or abandoning Gmail or Google Maps – and the effects, as far as privacy is concerned, are serious. This will result in fewer customized suggestions, less tracking of ads, and fewer logs of your internet activity being stored on the servers of Google. In a lot of respects, it even the playing field with one of the most data rich companies in the world.
It is important to note that such are not a single set of tweaks: to effectively maintain control over your data, you would need to check your account settings periodically since Google continuously introduces capabilities and privacy features. By clicking a couple of times, you have the option of determining what Google knows about you and what it doesn’t, and make your digital life more private in 2026 and beyond.
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News Source: Pcmag.com
