They say every cloud has a silver lining. Big tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft are taking user data privacy more seriously in reaction to the never-ending revelations of the ways Facebook does something sleazy and unethical when it comes to the collection and sharing of user data. The GDPR regulations adopted by the EU have also played an important role.
Information about you is being collected all the time if you go online, carry a cell phone or do anything else that involves interacting with the digital world. There’s nothing you can about that, but you can do something about what the tech giants do with your data after it’s collected.
Google has made a serious commitment to giving users more insight and control over what it does with the data it collects. What users do on the web or in apps is one of Google’s main sources of data. Recently, it gave people the ability to delete this data after a period of time. If you don’t want your data sitting on Google’s servers forever, you can delete it easily. Here’s how.
- Go to your Google account page at myaccount.google.com.
- Click on “Data and personalization” in the left sidebar or “Manage your data & personalization” on the “Privacy & personalization” card.
- Click “Web & App Activity” in the “Activity controls” box.
- Click “Manage activity”.
- Click the “Choose how long to keep” button.
- You can let Google keep your data for 3 months, 18 months or until you delete it manually. Choose which works best for you.
That’s all there is to it.
If you don’t want Google collecting any of these data, you can pause collection at the cost of losing the benefits of personalization across Google’s apps and services and personalized ad targeting that comes from Google. If you want to pause the data collection, flip the “Web & activity” toggle switch in step 4 above. If you choose to pause collection, the data Google has already collected won’t be deleted. You’ll have to continue on through steps 5 and 6 to delete your data.
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Google