Privacy, choice, and control how important are these to you? Ultimately, the only one who can answer this question is you. Through this article, we will reveal everything about the dark side of search engine marketing. We will explain how Google and Google Ads work “under the hood” to track your data. Google is the most valuable brand in the world as of 2017.
It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides), email (Gmail/Inbox), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), social networking (Google+), instant messaging and video chat (Google Allo, Duo, Hangouts), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and navigation (Google Maps, Google Earth, Street View), video sharing (YouTube), note-taking (Google Keep), and photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). Google knows what you look like to where you live and where you’ve traveled. The corporation may even be able to guess your favorite food. From what you’ve searched online and the websites you? ve visited etc.
How Google Actually Tracks You?
Your Appearance: Thanks to facial recognition in Google Photos, the search engine probably has a pretty good idea of what you look like. You can create a “label” within Google Photos that’s essentially a tag for each person in your images, and Google can separate that person from every photo you upload.
Your Voice: If you’ve ever used voice commands with Google Home, an Android device, or any other Google product or device, the site has a log of it. The site keeps a full history of your audio commands, including voice recordings.
Your Health Status: If you use Google Fit, the company probably has a pretty good overview of your health, from how active you are to the calories you burn a day to your fitness goals.
With the Help of Chrome Browser: If you have your Gmail account linked to your chrome browser then your all activities are tracked by Google. What you search online, which files you downloaded, which websites you visited. Even if you delete your browsing history on your mobile, it is stored in the Google database.
With the help of Gmail: All the emails you send to someone or you received by someone through your Gmail account is checked by Google first. The conversation between users is also tracked by Google. Your contacts are also scanned by Google using your Gmail.
With the help of Maps: If you using Google maps to search places or finding root then you are getting tracked by Google here also. A location you searched, places you traveled, modes of transportation and dates of travel this all your data is stored in Google database.
With the help of Calendar: Your upcoming plans and appointments are tracked by Google calendar.
With the help of Youtube: Videos you watch on YouTube, videos you like and videos you upload to YouTube this all data is saved in Google’s database.
With the help of ADS: Once you click on an ad, your information passes through to search engine marketers, where it’s forever stored in an AdWords account, never to be erased. The topics you are interested in, topics you like or dislike this can be understood by Google ADS.
Why Google Tracks?
To better their services, Google must track you. Imagine you are living in India, Hyderabad to be precise, and we’re searching for nearby hotels. Now Google customizes your search based on your past preferences, likes, and locality which would be impossible without the user’s proper location and other details.
Data about human behavior is valuable as they can “sell it” into the market. Advertisers pay to show themselves to users, Google makes sure this advert is relevant to that specific user because of his/her behavior. All of this adds value to the chain and allows Google to make money.
Accessing all that Data: Your data can be accessed by only your email and password. If you want to see your all saved data then follow the steps:
- Open https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity
- You can see all the activities performed by you on your smartphone or all devices which are connected to your Gmail. There is a filter option. You can use this option to see your data of specific date or specific Google services like Chrome, YouTube and Maps.
Deleting the Data from Google Database: We will now try to delete the whole data from your Google account and its database. But this doesn’t guarantee that data has been removed.
- Open https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity
- There is an option “Delete activity by” Click on it.
- Here you can delete your data or activities of a specific date or specific Google service or you can simply choose the “All Time” option for deleting your all data.
Your previous data is deleted but after that still, Google will start to track you. To stop this
- Open https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity
- There is an option “Activity controls” click on it.
- You can off all the options here to stop getting tracked by Google.
