Friday, 9 March 2018
Google Knows About You! Find out What It Knows Here:
Do you often look over your shoulders to check if anyone was staring at the monitor of your PC or phone whenever you use any of them in public places? I do that a lot too and you will agree that doesn’t necessarily happen because we have a secret that must be protected. It’s just that we like our privacy.
If you worry so much about the privacy of your online activities then you might not be too happy to know Google has been keeping a tab on you, so much that it knows your name, age, gender, location and a bunch of other stuff. Yes, Google has quietly been following you, collecting information and monitoring your online behavior unless you are certain you have never used any one of these; android phone, Google Search, Chrome browser, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and other numerous Google services you probably didn’t know belonged to Google.
Well, don’t panic even if you have been using Google in a not-so-good way (you know what I mean) because Google is not going to use what it knows about you to hurt you or anyone. It only gathers your details to be able to serve you personalized contents including ads. Before showing you how to stop Google from crawling over your activities lets discuss what it knows about you.
Your Location
Google likely knows where you are this very minute and not just that but also where you have been. If you have used Google Maps or own an android phone and you have not disabled its location feature in it, then Google knows where you live, work and play. Disabling location may not help you since it also uses your IP information to locate you. How else do you think your Google Search results are geographically accurate? There is a link under this post to view your Google location history.
Your Personal Data
Google knows your name, age, gender, phone numbers and others. You handed these details when you signed up your Gmail account or used any of Google’s numerous services that requested for them. Use the Google dashboard link under this post to view all your details.
Your Search History
Yes, Google knows your every single search since the last one year. Google has kept a record of all the things you have used its searched engine for. If you didn’t know, Google owns YouTube and that means it also has your YouTube search history including the videos you have watched, the time and place you searched or watched as well as the device you used for these activities. Use the web and app activity link under this post to see all of your search history.
Your Favorite Websites
I hope you won’t find this a bit creepy, but Google knows all about your favorite websites and how many times you have visited each of them. It uses its tool called Google Analytics that helps web publishers see the pages on their website you have visited and how many times you have visited it. It also records how long you stayed on their site and a bunch of other stuff. If you wish to stop Google from storing this type of information, use the appropriate link under this post.
Your Gmail Mailbox
Let me tell you this in few words. Google knows how many messages are in your Gmail inbox. It’s not like it minding your business or snooping but it just scans your inbox for information it will use to tailor the ads it shows you.
You Decide!
Here’s the good news; you can ask Google to stop with all that monitoring and data gathering.
The truth is Google is transparent and respects your privacy and that’s why it developed a bunch of ways where you can see the summary of the data collected by each of its tools that you use and also a walk-through guide to help you decide what information you want to share with Google and the public.