Google reveals major privacy shake-up, will auto-delete user data
According to a new blog post, Google will now automatically delete users’ search information, location data and voice commands after 18 months has elapsed since capture.
YouTube activity, meanwhile, will be kept on file for 36 months by default, which Google says will ensure viewers are served the most relevant content.
[...] The company’s auto-delete controls have been in place since last year, but will now be turned on by default for new users. Existing Google Account holders, though, will need to manually activate the auto-delete function from with the Activity Controls panel.
[...] The firm also took the opportunity to unveil a host of smaller changes designed to make it easier for users to access privacy controls and improve account security.
[...] Within the coming weeks, Google’s Password Checkup tool will also be integrated into the Security Checkup service, which notifies users of chinks in their security armor. The addition will allow account holders to check whether any of their login credentials have been compromised and safeguard against potential credential-stuffing attacks.
(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Thursday June 25 2020, @09:28PM (5 children)
I'll believe this when they allow a regulator to audit their servers.
Google's mission has always been Total Data Control, they want it all, every last bit of your tasty data.
Best to avoid them altogether, there are better services anyway.
(Score: 2) by deimios on Friday June 26 2020, @03:26AM
No, you can believe them! Any case of them not deleting the data will be immediately attributed to a bug with some poor engineer made responsible and fired, as soon as somebody with enough power finds out about it.
(Score: 2) by corey on Friday June 26 2020, @06:08AM (3 children)
I used to give Google the benefit of the doubt but that stopped when I discovered they don't allow encrypted archives (7z, etc) through their Gmail system. Apparently they need to virus check files, and they can't access them if they're encrypted. Pft.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday June 26 2020, @09:41AM (1 child)
What happens if you zip up your encrypted 7z archive inside a regular zip file?
Sure, it'd be an inconvenient workflow, but I wonder how many layers of obstruction they have...
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday June 26 2020, @02:02PM
Not enough levels apparently. Since I did wonder to since I used to store encrypted archives on my gmail account as a sort of cheapo-backup I decided to test again now. Straight up encrypted archives is no dice, error and return to sender. But putting the encrypted archive inside a non-encrypted archive does not trigger the security alert. It just took a long fucking time to show up -- seven minutes from sending to appearing in the gmail-inbox, so they desperately must have tried to do something to it.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday June 26 2020, @01:50PM
Odd, when did they start with that? I previously used to store encrypted archives there as some kind of free-saftey-backup. But I have not done in awhile since I sort of moved away to other solutions. But I did check now if I could send one and as you noted you can't -- "This message was blocked because its content presents a potential security issue. Please visit ... https://support.google.com/mail/?p=BlockedMessage [google.com] to review our message content and attachment content guidelines."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2020, @09:51PM (4 children)
Anyone who believes they are giving anything up, is deluding themselves.
Either they have other data that bridges the gap beyond the 18/3 months(you can set it to 3 months too, btw)
OR
They have figured out this data is worthless anyway
I hope it's the latter and they come to the realization that ALL this data is worthless (or at least not as valuable as it's been made out to be in this data-is-oil-totally-not-the-same-as-tulips-economy), and that this whole surveillance economy is starting to crumble down. After all, DDG figured out that you don't need that kind of pervasive surveillance to deliver meaningful advertisement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday June 25 2020, @10:13PM (3 children)
There is, probably, a large chunk of this. With large amounts of data there is always a point when getting more data doesn't actually really add much value or information, there is already clear trends and patterns and adding more rarely change that. So at least now you know that in less then three months of usage Google can profile you good enough that they don't need more information. After that they have you nailed down and then new data is just checked to see if it still fits the patterns.
They might delete the datapoints, nothing in there about not keeping an extensive summary, history file of things or just creating a profile or label and stick that on you. With 3, or 18, months of data they have probably already built a fairly solid profile and model of you and put you into one of their niches or labels and that is good enough for them and their advertisers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @01:33AM (1 child)
Another thing that most companies realize is *old* data is a liability.
Let say you have a jr employee and they say something in email. Then spin 10 years on they are head of a division. Then someone comes along and subpoenas everything you know about that employee. Suddenly something that employee said 10 years ago becomes relevant. It can and will be used out of context.
Cancel culture depends on it. On the flip side those who want the power to spit off whatever they feel like love the idea that their old ideas are never heard from again and accountability is for others. They can float with the crowd and look amazing doing it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @01:50AM
I would say more than liability, old data is not so useful for new advertising purposes, and takes up space on their servers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:31AM
This is so true, consumer memory is short, https://www.msi.org/reports/memory-factors-in-advertising/ [msi.org]this is only one of many studies where marketing is quickly forgotten for distractions or wandering eyeballs.
In some ways 3 or 18 months i overkill, so is probably them seeing less value in maintaining the storage costs. (TLAs will have harvested what they wanted well inside the window also).
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday June 25 2020, @10:02PM (1 child)
... Why do they need to retain any of that at all in a way that identifies the user?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Friday June 26 2020, @12:38AM
How else are they going to use it to bombard you with lucrative finely-targeted advertising?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Friday June 26 2020, @02:52AM
Coincidentally, youtube has just changed all of their pages into wads of javashit, so if you go there without javashit enabled you can't see search results or even the title of a video anymore. A 600K blank page is all you get.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday June 26 2020, @03:04PM (1 child)
"relevant" as defined by google roflmao
I see a downward trending chart asymptotic with zero.
But as with all companies like this, the brand name is now worn thin, they are alphabet, and everyone has been censored in one way by the old nametag, so they have to switch everything up anyway after a bunch of empty promises to really, this time, not be evil.
I mean at some point your search results are returning that you are the worst company in the history of the world, and that you are traitors, and your ceo has an armed boat sailing the seas doing who knows what.
Someone said it is part of his religion that it is better for charity if you do it secretly.
But they didnt read all the fine print on that religion, you also get to redeem yourself from your own sins by giving a tiny fraction of the profit you made from those sins to charity. Or the whole shake a chicken over your head thing, which I guess if you have 20 billion dollars you would prefer to give .1% of your earnings than dealing with live poultry and feathers in your hair.
You will notice this site itself is going through the same cycle, its usefulness as a honey trap is trending downwards, so the admins are allowing more antisocial bullshit and flooding the site with cruft, because truth of the matter is even just I alone have posted more repressed content here to make it a liability to the day to day propaganda.
And you should check out reddit for their retroactive censorhip, my old usernames have had over 200 comments deleted, so far, that we know of.
I know that is a little off topic, but the clock is ticking for the userbase of this site, and I thought I would just get it out there.
If you think about it even soylent has a built in censorship, unless you pay it is almost impossible to find older comments, you have to click through hundreds of pages to see the real user history of some people.
I just give you mine for free, archived: https://archive.is/FHpOa [archive.is]
What names will they call me today? Tune in and see.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:23PM
You're still a little shitstain hiding from the cold truths of reality [soylentnews.org] in the board game you created in your head, hudson. And I'm starting to lose my patience with your kind. You're all fucking lazy and that's the worst thing I'll blame you for. That's what you deserve to be blamed for no matter how much nonsense speak you whip up in people's faces. You're fucking boring and lazy. That's the end truth of it all.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿