What Does Google Know About You

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KASHIF JAVED 

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What Does Google Know About You

Google has had a profound effect on our lives. Thanks to the search engine, we can find quick online solutions whenever we are in a fix. We can “google” just about anything from rush-hour traffic alerts to DIY solutions. Just like most social media networks and other big websites, Google amasses a lot of data about its visitors. This harvesting of personal data happens on a scale that you wouldn’t even imagine. Here’s what Google knows about you.

Your Browsing Location

If you leave the location tracker on your device on, Google logs the data about your whereabouts. Actually, you can get a datasheet of all your locations from the day you first started using Google. Google also stores the exact time that you were in those places and the time that it took you to get from one spot to another. Click on this link to see the What Does Google Know About You or amount of data about your location that Google has stored.
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Your Search History

Google stores information about your search history across all the devices that you have ever used. This means that deleting your phone history and search history on one device is meaningless since Google still has the data saved from your other devices. Therefore, the site knows everything that you have ever searched for beside what you have ever deleted. To understand how much Google knows about your search history, click here.

Your Personal Likings

Have you ever asked yourself why you always see ads that are similar to the online searches you have recently undertaken? Well, this is a manifestation of the fact that Google has advertisement profiles of each user. Your profile is likely to contain information about your age, gender, location, hobbies, religious affiliations, personal interests, career, income, and possibly, your relationship status. The site keeps track of your personal information so that whatever ads you see match your tastes and preferences.

Your Apps

Google logs information about the apps and extensions that you use on your smartphones and PCs. Besides this, the site knows how often you use these apps, where you use them, and even those that you interact with via the apps. For instance, Google knows the people that you communicate with on Facebook and their current location.

Your YouTube History

Google stores yourYouTube Watch andYouTube Search history. This clearly shows that YouTube is among the significant Internet trails that you leave behind. Typically, YouTube logs data about your viewing history, searches, and even subscriptions to improve Google’s understanding of you. Google may well know whether you are Catholic or Protestant, your political views, and so on.

Why Does Google Keep So Much Information About Users?

The search engine has a good reason for keeping a lot of data about its users and their interests. The information that it stores about you comes in handy during the development of new features, devices, and websites. A huge chunk of the information that Google keeps about you is meant for advertisers since they pay the site to show their ads. This explains why ads are tailored to resonate with your Google activity.
Fortunately, Google is transparent since it lets you know the amount of data that it collects about you. The “Your Data” page on Google indicates how much information is gathered from users. This includes their names, email addresses, birthdays, phone number, gender, and country. According to Google, this is done to ensure that its services work efficiently for you.

How Safe is the Data

To ensure that no one else has access to your data, Google argues that it has an impenetrable cloud infrastructure, which guarantees that your data transit safely between your smartphone or computers and its servers.
This cloud infrastructure gives no backdoor or direct access to your data to government agencies. Besides this, Google argues that it doesn’t sell users’ data. Instead, it simply uses your data to make ads relevant to you. In addition, none of your information is handed over to advertisers.

The Download Option

As part of its transparency policy, Google gives you the option of downloading all the data that it stores. By clicking on the search engine’sTakeout page, you will be able to download the data about your contacts, emails, bookmarks, Google Drive files, YouTube videos, Google Hangout sessions, and even all the Google books that you may have purchased in the past.

Conclusion about What Does Google Know About You

Although Google attempts to gather as much information as possible about its users, you can limit what the search engine will collect about you. By visiting the site’s Activity Page or using Google’sPrivacy Checkup tool, you can easily toggle everything off. This will prevent Google from tracking your location, web and app activity, YouTube Search, and device information.
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