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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.
I use Adblock most of the time. But, for some reason, by brain is convinced that interest-based ads will be less likely to serve up malware. I'm not interested in downloading malware, so it won't show me ads that host it. Right?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
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?
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.
First reaction: Wow, I sure watch a lot of old Bob Ross and Carol Burnett Show videos on Youtube.
Second reaction: Wow, is there anything but old Bob Ross and Carol Burnett Show videos in here?
Third reaction: Wow, I'm really boring....
Not to be obvious but I think they meant 'taler'.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The Google links in the summary are bad. Just go to https://myactivity.google.com/
The links in the summary are to the "not supported" page. Sheesh.
users can edit or delete their tracked behaviors
You mean users can mark the behavior that's most embarrassing to them, don't you.
The link to the ad controls in the summary is broken. The correct target is https://www.google.com/setting...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Nothing but bbw midget hentai porn 20 hours a day, i had no idea I was away from the computer for 4 hours a day!
I may be naive and eventually end up with egg on my face but here goes. In today's world we all know the horse has left the gate wrt privacy. It seems the issue now isn't who's collecting the data, it's what happens to your data after it's been scooped up. And what keeps the data from escaping comes down to the question of how that data is being exploited for generating revenue.
Google gets a lot of flack around here but if you follow the money, they have a pretty good incentive to do whatever it takes to keep the tracking data high-quality and most definitely in-house. Mainly because they own the search market and the better the ad targeting, the more protected Alphabet's revenue stream is.
Apple is obviously dependent on hardware sales so not much needs to be said about that. Plus they really don't want bad PR from data escaping.
So let's compare that to the other 800lb gorilla(s). I don't see any reason why Facebook, Pinterest, etc. wouldn't incorporate outright sale of their tracking data to third parties (if they don't ship it out the back door already). Sure, they're dependent on ad/affiliate revenue too but with one other important difference. Google has an (effective) search monopoly where data exposure would stir up a hornet's nest of legal issues directly or indirectly.
Facebook has little to lose since their product (users) don't seem to care what happens to their data as long as they can post their cat pictures. And they've built a Terms of Use that guarantees they own every aspect of the data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Terms_of_Use_controversy). Not to mention there's not been much talk of anyone caring about a company holding a monopoly in the social network sphere. It's a 'meh' issue when compared to search market share.
So what's keeping Facebook from transforming more of their revenue stream from ad sales to data sales down the road? Especially with the ad controversies that were swirling around (https://youtu.be/oVfHeWTKjag)? Following the money...not much?
P.S. - s/tailer/tailor
So, what if I don't mind being tracked by Google, but I just don't want this webpage available for anyone out there to access (ie if my password gets compromised)? I can't see a way to opt out of the availability of the data without deleting the data.
I have a robot that allows me to select my "identity du jour" before going to bed.
While I sleep, it wanders the web engaging in activities that enforce my new persona.
Tomorrow, perhaps I'll be a ballerina with an STD, or maybe a butcher who loves animals, or . . .
. . . decisions, decisions, decisions
Since I use Google Navigate to warn me about traffic problems every time I drive anywhere, this information would be very useful to any assassin wanted to track my movement patterns. Or any wives/mistresses/girlfriends, for that matter. And yes, my ex-wife used to go through my phone while I was sleeping to see what I had been doing.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You'd think by now Google would know what kind of porn I liked, and could recommend the good stuff for me, wouldn't you? Unless... they are actually taking this "incognito window" stuff seriously.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I uses it to reduce my activity to Desert With Tumbleweed!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Not sure if I should be happy or worried there's nothing there but my YouTube history considering how much I use Google+, Voice, Calendar, Search, Nexus tablet, and other services I don't even remember they've become so ubiquitous to my life.
..and deleting my search history. I don't see what is new here except maybe a fancy new interface.,,,,
I am logged into YouTube all the time though, that's one thing from Google that I need. But is it able to link everything to it for that reason?
Yes. Log out of YouTube, then click the Sign In link and look where it actually takes you: accounts.google.com. Logging in there sets a cookie for google.com, which can and will be read by google.com and its other subdomains, tying your activity together.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
Looked it over, but I can't figure out what it means. Both the google's version of "My Activity" and the slashdot side consisting of an article and visible comments. Now I expect such obfuscation from the google since their motto became "All your attention are belong to us", but I confabulate that slashdot used to be more revealing.
Short summary: The level of information that the "My Activity" page reveals is without form or meaning. Too much data and no way to understand how it is used, though I'm still sure it is mostly used to manipulate and twist us to the google's will. What we really need to know is HOW the google analyzes the data and WHEN it is being used and in WHICH ways. Probably an impossible problem since all of us are too stupid to understand the google. The google will tell me so, even though the search "how to outsmart google" came up with a couple of interesting books (that are not available locally, at least not in English).
Long answer: Naw, I can't be bothered to write more, and would be "penalized" for the long comment if I did. Today's slashdot doesn't motivate the effort to write so thoughtfully. It doesn't even have a fraction of the funny comments it used to. However, I might be confabulating myself again.
(Now if slashdot supported such a financial model, I might be motivated to help support a project to detect abusive long comments, such as long cut-and-paste blurbs from the Web. Whoa, dead horse, whoa.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Try clicking on "other google activity", and then location history. It's incredibly accurate. I can see where I walked around 2 years ago and made wrong turns and walked back.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I think these guys assume there would be a lot of backlash if people saw all this stuff at once from some other source. Or maybe they can see users pulling back and going to DuckDuckGo or other services. So they're trying to prevent that by showing you a bit more of tracking creepiness, so you get used to it and don't complain later.
Now all we need is an "NSA My Activity" and we're good to go.
I have search history, location history.... all turned off so I get a 'nothing to see here' level of output.
Does this mean that Google is genuinely not collecting my history? or is it more likely that they are and my opting out merely sets a flag used by the presentation layer to send back an empty set?
I'd be surprised if it were not the latter.
Nobody has ever accused AC of being clever.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The quick, right-to-the-point URL to delete everything:
http://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity/
(Sign in if needed.)
Select "All Time" from the top pull-down, then hit "DELETE".
There are a lot of youtube videos in there that I didn't watch (country music videos from VEVO stations). I wonder if someone isn't embedding silent invisible players in web pages somewhere to drive ad revenue...