Make sure to scroll down on this page to access the settings for Location History, YouTube History, and Personalized Ads.īy clicking the icons for each service under “See and delete activity,” you can get a sense of just what Google has recorded about you, and you can delete data manually if it perturbs you. On your Activity Controls page, Google provides a single master switch that lets you pause Web & App Activity, though you’ll have to acknowledge that it may impact your experience of Google sites, apps, and services signed in to your account. What you should do depends on how much benefit you feel you derive from the personalization of Google apps and services, and what you think about personalized ads. How Should You Configure Web & App Activity? That’s what Apple is channeling with its Tracked video. Ad-driven companies like Google claim people prefer personalized ads, but most people we talk with dislike having ads-particularly for already purchased items or past vacations-follow them around the Internet. You want Google to know more about you so its services work better, but you may not want the company to know so much about you that it can charge advertisers a higher price for access to you. We’re talking hundreds of billions of dollars per year, which is why it’s important to Google to learn as much about you as possible in order to give advertisers the best chance of enticing you to click their ads.įor many (most?) people, there’s a tension between personalization and advertising. Advertising: The bulk of Google’s revenue comes from companies that pay Google to display their ads. For instance, Google Search can suggest search results that are nearby you if it knows where you are, and YouTube can recommend videos based on what you’ve watched previously. Personalization: When a service knows what you’ve searched for and how you’ve used it in the past, it can adjust its behavior to improve future usage.In addition to offering a lot of services, there are two more reasons why Google collects so much information about its users: personalization and advertising: It’s hard to avoid Google, even if you wanted to, which most people don’t. Google Search is by far the most popular search engine, only recently has Apple Maps competed head-to-head with Google Maps, YouTube is the main source of video on the Internet, and so on. That sounds like a lot, and it is! One reason there’s so much is because Google is such a dominant provider of services on the Internet today. Activity can be saved even when you’re offline or signed out. What’s less obvious is that Web & App Activity can even include information from sites and apps that partner with Google to show ads or that use Google services. It also stores usage and diagnostic information from Android smartphones. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, it includes your browsing history. It includes your searches and activity in Google Search, Google Maps, Google Assistant, Google News, Google Photos, YouTube, and more. Simply put, Web & App Activity is a record of almost everything you do on Google sites, apps, and services. Their next questions were often, “Wait, what is Web & App Activity, and do I want it enabled?” Here are some answers. Those with a healthy dose of caution were concerned that it might be a phishing attack, but no, it’s legitimate. Earlier this year, some of our clients received an email from Google reminding them that they have Web & App Activity turned on.
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