It’s no secret that Google tracks a lot of data about you, from the websites you visit to the videos you watch, the things you’ve searched for, and the places you have visited. Scrubbing this data from your Google account has required you to manually dig into your settings each time. That’s changing soon.
In the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out a feature to users around the world that will let them set this information to be deleted automatically every three or 18 months.
"We work to keep your data private and secure, and we’ve heard your feedback that we need to provide simpler ways for you to manage or delete it," Google said in a blog post published Wednesday.
For now, these controls are only coming to your location history and web and app activity, but it’s likely that they’ll come to more of your data history at some point.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday May 04 2019, @09:01PM (3 children)
Google providing real anonymity and privacy tools... From the data leech whose very business model is based on collecting data. Riiight...
I'm sure the data scrubbing dog and pony show will be very believable, but I'm equally sure they'll keep the data without telling you. In short, you'll have the illusion of control.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymouse Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @09:40PM
What? You don t believe our
ruling oligarchsbenevolent corporate citizens?Why, shame on you, Roscoe!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 04 2019, @10:15PM
You know what would be cool, give us real subpoena power over our personal data, so that, you, Rosco P. Coltrane can serve a real court order to Google, facebook, anybody you did business with, and who they sold the data to, turn over anything at all with your name, social security, phone, address, all of it, even a hint. Failure to comply will result in heavy fines and jail time for contempt etc. It will be much more convenient for them to actually dispose of the data. The subpoena power can help us verify. We'll never get privacy, so let's demand real transparency, with teeth!
(Score: 2) by corey on Saturday May 04 2019, @11:14PM
I especially like how they're calling it a New Feature, which is Rolling Out. Sounds great.
The feature is, Google will allow you to hide your own history from yourself. But advertisers and govt bodies will still have access.