Google's My Activity Reveals How Much It Knows About You (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google has released a new section to Google's account settings, called My Activity, which lets users review everything that Google has tracked about their online behavior -- search, YouTube, Chrome, Android, and every other Google service. Best of all, users can edit or delete their tracked behaviors. In addition, the My Activity tools come with new ad preferences. Google is now offering to use its behavioral information to tailer ads shown across the wider non-Google internet and Google's search pages, which until now was purely done through the use of cookies. The difference between Google and other companies that offer ads like Facebook is that Google is making this interest-based advertising extension optional, or opt-in, not opt-out. There are two separate behavioral advertising settings for users to switch on or off: signed in ads and signed out ads. Signed in ads are those on Google services, and signed out ads are those served by Google on third-party sites. However, if you're conscious about your privacy, you'll probably want to stay opted out.

Comments

and for those who didn't sign up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google tracks everyone, whether or not you have "made a google account", which is another way to say "given them even better quality data".

I went to that page. I do not see any way to delete the profile they build of me via google analytics and other things, because I have never made an account. So the only way I can accomplish this is to tell them even more about who I am?

How about making profiling opt IN instead of opt OUT?

Do you believe Google?

[matbury]

If you believe that Google would willingly stop collecting any data about you on your request, well, you're more naive than I thought. My bet is that they just stop revealing those data to you that they say they'll stop collecting and then use the additional data, i.e. that you opted out, to further profile you, e.g. the user is sensitive about A, B, & C and has preferences for X, Y, & Z.

Re:Do you believe Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying that the FTC are granted access and go through EVERYTHING that google has?

Not to belabor the point, but all google has to do move the data for users who opt out from the "stuff we got on people" to some other, more obscure location.

If anything, I am pretty sure google collects usage data on people who don't even have google accounts, based on IPs, usage patterns and whatnot, people who have never consented to google's terms and don't have a way to opt out.

And following google's own rhetoric "only the guilty want to hide" it is safe to assume all the people who opt out are actually put in some "people we need to track especially hard and rat to the NSA on own own accord" list. And who's to say the FTC, even if aware of that, isn't keeping quiet on orders from the government? Because it will be unethical or illegal and the various US "intelligence" agencies are not known for doing unethical or illegal things. Google has no blowback to worry about if they are doing it on request and the only way for this to surface would be some very serious leak or hack, which I image after Snowden will not be as trivial. Basically, Snowden revealed mostly old and obsolete stuff, I highly doubt the NSA/CIA/whatever have been keeping idle since.

But hey, keep defending your evil monopolistic employer.

Re:Interest-Based Ads

[darthsilun]

Meh. Before I used Adblock I'd search for something, buy it, and then see ads for it for weeks.

Which seems – to me – to be missing the target.