Google 'Account Activity' Jumps Into Personal Analytics

An anonymous reader tips news of a new feature announced by Google today: Account Activity. Writing on their official blog, Google's Andreas Tuerk said, "If you sign up, each month we’ll send you a link to a password-protected report with insights into your signed-in use of Google services. For example, my most recent Account Activity report told me that I sent 5 percent more email than the previous month and received 3 percent more. An Italian hotel was my top Gmail contact for the month. I conducted 12 percent more Google searches than in the previous month, and my top queries reflected the vacation I was planning: [rome] and [hotel]." You may remember from earlier this month that Stephen Wolfram began showing some of the extensive personal analytics data he has collected over the past 20 years.

Comments

Something married men should stay away from.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

I'm sure your wife would love to know that you're looking for porn 5% more this month.

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[SniperJoe]

If I'm looking at porn 5% more a month, she damn well knows why. She should be more concerned if my porn consumption drops to 0 unexpectedly.

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[girlintraining]

I'm sure your wife would love to know that you're looking for porn 5% more this month.

Pfft! Most women don't care if their guy looks at porn. They just want him to pick up after himself and not sit on the couch after work all night watching TV with his hand in a bag of potato chips. Many marriages are sexless ones, especially after kids are in the picture. So really, while they wouldn't care about their man looking at porn, they'd probably be surprised -- I mean, who has time to masturbate when you've got two screaming kids who, if left unattended for more than 2 minutes will destroy everything you own and ever loved? Nobody, that's who.

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft! Most women don't care if their guy looks at porn. They just want him to pick up after himself and not sit on the couch after work all night watching TV with his hand in a bag of potato chips.

Wouldn't eating salty potato chips immediately before watching pr0n lead to... discomfort?

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[fahrbot-bot]

Um... Anyone who is actually logged into their Google account while searching for porn is a moron.
Though it's probably smarter than using Froogle ...

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[CSMoran]

I have 2 kids, both of which goto:

Isn't that considered harmful?

Re:Something married men should stay away from.

[gnapster]

Yes, Dr. Phil strongly recommends structured parenting.

Belly button contemplation

[stevegee58]

Features like this are symptomatic of a self-obsessed, narcissistic society.

Re:Belly button contemplation

[war4peace]

Wow. Just wow.
I opted in with enthusiasm for the following reasons:

1. I like statistics. I work with statistics, reports, business analytics, data mining so it's well within my area of interest.
2. The report (as far as I have seen) tells me what I've done and allows me to make things more efficient.
3. It provides me with insight of how much does Google know about me. It knows a lot. Do I care? No, not really. I'm not yelling for privacy for the sake of privacy.

(that last point can lead to a really--REALLY long discussion though, so I'd better stop now before it's too late)

Typos

[Russ1642]

Your typing was 12% better this month. Keep up the good work!

A source of new info for ads?

[space fountain]

Just a theory, but I'd bet that Google's setting this up to give them an excuse to collect even more info about you. Then again I opted in.

Re:A source of new info for ads?

[amRadioHed]

I opted-in, and yet my web history still says it's disabled.

Re:this is how it begins

[KhabaLox]

News Flash.... Google is collecting this information whether you choose to receive it or not.

If anything, this type of service will raise user's awareness of just how much companies like Google know about you.

I love this.

[Shoten]

Google is in the midst of an effort to inform people about privacy. Not by saying "hey, listen up" and then dictating information to them, but by doing everything they can to get people to look at Google's own use of data and the rules they set for themselves around privacy. All those times when they kept telling us that their privacy policy had changed? Yeah, that's a part of it. Also, for those in urban envionments who take the L, T, Subway, Metro, whatever...you've probably seen the ads explaining at a high level how they use the data they collect to personalize search results. Now this is the next step: giving them the opportunity to see how analytics work in a way that is relevant to their understanding, and to their own lives.

The big problem with privacy isn't that people aren't getting it...it's that people aren't demanding it. But until they know what privacy really is (no, it's not security) and how it works, that won't change. Until they actually pay attention to what is being done with their own information, how can we expect an uproar over the abuse of it? That's what Google is up to now, and I commend them for it. They are playing a VERY forward-thinking game, and are truly acting in the best interests of the common good.

Re:I love this.

[Aighearach]

Indeed, if I had written their part as a responsible ad company, I wouldn't have imagined it plausible for them to do so much good as they already do.

Re:I love this.

[kqs]

I have never opted-in or clicked 'yes' on any agreement with Google. Why are they collecting my search data?

Because you send it to them every time you use them? Because they've always been clear about what they are collecting and how they use it? Because, as far as anyone can tell, they adhere to their policy that they collect and use data, but do not sell that data to others?

If you don't want them to collect your search data, don't use them. You can use another search provider, probably with a worse privacy policy, or you can write your own. Or use one of the many systems which use google while hiding your identity from them.

Yeah, so when the shitstorm comes, they can say.. "see ! we already had some website that was never on the front page of google which told you what we were doing. Why didnt you click and see ?.. its your fault for not hiring a $300/hr lawyer to explain to you our terms of service"

I truly hope you get paid to be google's little whore on slashdot. Surely.. you cant be as retarded as you appear here.

So, you complain loudly and bitterly about the company which shows you what they collect about you, and don't complain about companies which collect the same data but will not tell you. An interesting strategy indeed, and it's working perfectly; almost no companies try to be transparent, since the only reward is chorus of whining.

Re:this is how it begins

[Aighearach]

Google has a strong history of not selling personal information. They use it to deliver ads, but they don't expose individual data to the advertisers.

Kids these days don't realize how much better it is. In the old days all of the top 10 ad companies would sell all your private info to to anybody. Google has changed the game and changed the level of privacy and transparency people expect in all the online services.

Think I'll sign up

[doston]

Just to see if Ghostery, Better Privacy and wise cookie management are doing the trick.

Re:Think I'll sign up

[bmimatt]

Add https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/googlesharing/ Google Sharing - a tracking anonymizing proxy FF plugin to the list.

Re:this is how it begins

[Monchanger]

Pretty much. And the result was we live in a better, more private world thanks to it (assuming Google stays the course, of course).