
You will be surprised to see how much Google tracks about you - ssahoo
https://myactivity.google.com/item
======
dang
This submission breaks the site guidelines egregiously by injecting pure
clickbait into the title. We take aubmission privileges away from accounts
that do that, so please don't do that again. Instead, (re-)read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html),
which includes: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or
linkbait."

The idea is to take linkbait out. Adding it in is going the wrong way down a
one-way street.

~~~
solarkraft
While I don't like clickbait I don't actually find this to be a very offensive
case. It ties into the "oh wait, Facebook sells my data?" discussion pretty
well. Also there are many other articles on HN that break the rule far worse,
imo.

~~~
dang
The solution is not to have more articles that break the rules; the solution
is to tell us, by flagging or emailing hn@ycombinator.com, when there's a case
we haven't seen. We change all the ones we see, or at least post an
explanation like I did this time.

------
TheAceOfHearts
No, I won't. I've seen this page before and I've disabled a lot of the stuff
that I'm uncomfortable with having them track. Google does a lot of shady
creepy stuff, but I think just linking to your activity timeline doesn't add
much value. How about writing a blog post about which items you found most
surprising instead?

I do wish we had was better controls. For example, if you disable location
tracking, Google Maps won't remember any address you visit. Why can't it be
cached locally? If I regularly visit an address on my phone, it should be
included in my autocomplete. I don't need cross-device history or tracking, I
just want my damn phone to remember places I've visited previously without
uploading it to the cloud. Taking an all-or-nothing approach seriously harms
the user experience.

Despite it taking years, I've gradually been migrating away from my hard
dependency on Google services. With that being said, if I were locked out of
my gmail account I'd be seriously fucked. Maybe some day I'll reach the point
where that's not the case.

~~~
ssahoo
I think the Google Maps annoyance after activity tracking is disabled is
designed intensionally. To force users to give up the control with easy to
click buttons.

~~~
jkaplowitz
I too dislike how many of Google's consumer services are being increasingly
gated on the location history permission, which I too have disabled and which
therefore means I can't use those services.

However, having worked at other parts of Google (not on Maps or location
stuff), I'd guess at a much more prosaic explanation than that kind of
conspiracy: the product managers / engineers / tech writers / UI designers
don't want to maintain the complexity of both code paths and UX flows
indefinitely if most users are happy to share their location server-side in
exchange for the conveniences and features that enables.

You and I aren't happy to do that, but we on Hacker News aren't representative
of most consumer-product Google users.

~~~
majewsky
> I too dislike how many of Google's consumer services are being increasingly
> gated on the location history permission, which I too have disabled and
> which therefore means I can't use those services.

Huh? Google Maps works fine for me despite having disabled location services.
It nags me nearly everytime I open the app to "enable location services to
proceed", making it sound as though it is required, but I just click "No" and
get on with it. Haven't noticed any missing features.

~~~
jkaplowitz
One example of a Google consumer service that needs location history is the
Google Assistant. on my Google Pixel phone, that has fully replaced the older
non-Assistant OK Google system which didn't require location history.

------
tonylinn80
Not surprising at all. I've been actively logging into Google and confirming
my visits at various restaurants. I've been using it to track my past
activities, and I hope it can provide more accurate restaurant recommendations
for me. It has been quite useful. Video recommendations on Youtube are also
way more accurate than any other service I've ever seen. If you don't mind
sharing your personal data, you do get better service over time.

~~~
ILikeConemowk
>you do get better service over time.

Awesome, now you're stuck in a bubble where serendipity will no longer play a
role in you stumbling upon interesting videos you NEVER thought you'd like,
same for restaurants, websites and who nows what more?

On a more serious note, I'd argue that you do not get a better service, your
profile becomes near to perfect and your experience online, and increasingly
offline, will stagnate.

------
harryf
I think Google is doing this right. Yes they're not showing you everything
they know and yes the UI could be a lot better but fundamentally I feel like
I'm in control here. I know Googles business model means selling me as a
product to advertisers but they give me a lot of value in return with search
and maps, and they're allowing me here to control on what basis advertisers
can target me.

The only thing missing is Google paying me something for this data - as I'm
the "head of a family" and the main earner, I believe the ability to influence
me is worth more than the value I'm getting back from Google. I choose whether
my kids get Android phones or iPhones for example...

------
guu
I actually think they deserve some credit for putting this page together. It
helps you understand what they’re collecting and gives you an easy way to turn
the tracking off.

------
lamlam
If you clicked the link and found the amount of information they have on your
surprising, and now feel a bit violated, then good; you should.

You'll probably try to do a bit of research and try to figure out how to opt
out of all this and protect yourself. And you should. But you shouldn't just
stop there.

Many of the people who are reading this right now are responsible for
designing and implementing systems that collect massive amounts of data. I
implore you to not just think about your own privacy moving forward, but the
privacy of your users. Security and privacy should be two of your top level
concerns when designing systems, not just tack-ons.

Simply hating of Google/Facebook/$$$Corp for invading your privacy and not
doing anything to rememdy the general poor state of privacy in the modern
connected world when you have the power to do so is hypocritical.

Next time you're given a project that has PII and the security user story gets
deprioritized, raise it as an issue. Aside from being the right thing to do,
many places, such as Canada and California, are looking at GDPR-like
regulations. So it makes sense to do it now instead of later.

And if you're going to argue that it's hard, and it's time consuming, and
you're a startup just trying to get on their feet so you can't be bothered,
then consider that you may be part of the reason we find ourselves in this
sorry state.

/rant

------
Mizza
They're also excluding vastly more information than they know about you -
they're only showing your activity on Google properties, but not your activity
on sites which use Google Analytics or Google Ads.. which is most of them.

~~~
Yetanfou
Blocking Google Analytics is a good antidote against it collecting any data on
you. Block it at the router, in the hosts file and by using adblockers (which
also block other analytics "services").

------
jakobegger
I was shocked the first time I realised that Google stores all you search
queries by default. Typing things in a website seemed like a private activity,
and all of a sudden, it wasn‘t. Years of history, mostly mundane, some queries
mildly embarrassing, and a few that I really wanted to keep to myself.

I deleted all the data, immediately, logged out of Google, and started to
reduce my reliance on Google. I switched to Fastmail for Email, use Duckduckgo
for searches, and I try to use a variety of routing apps, even though none are
as good as Google Maps.

I‘ve become paranoid with regard to form fields on the web. I stopped trusting
websites. I use an incognito tab for Facebook, hoping that‘ll stop them from
correlating my day to day browsing with my profile. I stop myself before I
type a name into the search box, worrying that the algorithm would draw
conclusions...

~~~
solarkraft
> they store my search history

by default they also remember every time you open what app and where exactly
you go.

i know because they can show me where i've been and which apps i've used. I
let them collect the data because those are things I am interested in as well.

------
soziawa
I'm not surprised. But then again does Google give that data to some shady app
a friend of me has installed? I don't think so.

------
whalesalad
As an iPhone user I’m really not surprised by any of the data “in my file” –
google maps queries, google queries, and YouTube videos.

It makes sense that Facebook gets all your call data and Google knows things
like what apps you have when your operating system allows it.

------
beenBoutIT
If I were in charge of Hacker News I'd occasionally make posts like this and
quietly ban users who up-voted them. The post title effectively translates to
"You are an idiot that doesn't belong here."

~~~
bmon
I think upvotes should more resemble "let's discuss this" rather than "I agree
with this".

~~~
beenBoutIT
Interesting. Any idea if the significance of the up-vote is explained
somewhere officially?

------
ChrisAntaki
Do any other big tech companies offer interfaces like this?

~~~
e12e
Hopefully it'll become more common with GDPR...

------
Kequc
The most frightening thing about the data Google collects is location history.
It was a real wake-up when I realised they use that data to map real life
social networks. They know everyone you've bumped into every day, how long you
talked to them for, who you've had a one night stand with. Your daily
routines, who your friends are, and more, which all can be discovered just by
analysing location history.

Them knowing what your favourite coffee shop is or where you work and live is
just the tip of the iceberg.

I used to be a very heavy and trusting Google user. It started to get a little
bit uncomfortable when I noticed an alert on my phone notifying me that there
was a restaurant nearby that I might like to try. It occurred when I had 30-40
minutes to spare, it was a restaurant that indeed looked interesting to me,
and was within a 5 minute walk. Yes that's useful but my conclusion was that
this company knows way too much about me. It didn't make me comfortable when
Google alerted me about flights I never explicitly told it that I was taking,
and offered suggestions about how to get to the Airport that suited my
routine.

~~~
InterestBazinga
How did you minimize your usage of Google? Most of the smart phones are juggle
between Apple and google? Where do you go for research questions and topics?

~~~
colecut
There are alternative mobile OS options, such as LineageOS or Plasma Mobile.

There is also NextCloud, which has an impressive number of apps that could
help make getting off of Google easier.. mail, calendar, contacts, notes,
drive, xmpp chat, video chat, trello clone, password manager, music player....

Collabora can also be installed to give an alternative to Docs / Sheets /
etc..

~~~
_o_
Most of spying comes on behalf od google framework, that comes with google
play. LineageOS wont solve that (actually they refused changes that would
allow replacing google framework with microg) but a fork of it will. They are
reimplementing oss, google compatible framework, also your battery will last
~30% longer (no battery drain due to google spying).

[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)

To use google play store, find yalp explorer.

Why google framework is a problem and why bother with microg? Android
developers are using calls to it and without it, half or even more apps would
break. Microg implements those calls and fakes electronic signatures of google
binaries to keep them working.

------
est
1\. Open chrome settings

2\. Go to content settings add domain encrypted.google.com

3\. disable javascript & cookie on this domain.

4\. Search exclusively on encrypted.google.com

5\. Download adblocker and disable all google ads.

Google can't track no shit. I reviewed
[https://myactivity.google.com/item](https://myactivity.google.com/item) and
all I can see is youtube browsing history.

~~~
ssahoo
The core functionality of encrypted.google.com has been incorporated into the
Google search homepage. Those visiting this URL after April 30, 2018 will be
redirected to [https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com).

~~~
est
ipv6.google.com then.

I am pretty sure google has some more subdomains to block.

------
baddox
Is there surprising or troubling stuff on others’ feeds that I’m not seeing on
mine? Mine is just a list of searches I’ve made while logged in on Google
products: maps, search, etc.

I was expecting to see something less obvious, like location data that I
didn’t explicitly or knowingly share with Google.

~~~
rojcyk
If you go to "Other Google activity" via the sidebar you can find Location
History, Device Information, Google Play Sound Search History and some other
stuff.

~~~
baddox
All three are empty, at least in the last 2 weeks. I would expect there to be
some location history, since I use google maps logged in all the time, but
nope.

~~~
solarkraft
I'm guessing you've turned the collection off. They'll be at least smart
enough not to show you if they still collect it.

------
_o_
Based on my tracking of what google services does on your phone, what google
shows to you is far from all what google knows about you, they have set those
pages as a PR, to calm down users and only throwed in some peanuts. After GDPR
kicks in, I will officialy request the infomation from them and compare those
data with the data I know were sent to their servers. Next thing is article
and official complain to EU authorities. This madness must stop.

Btw, my profile exported few kilobytes of data. Beat that ;)

~~~
solarkraft
I'll look out for the HN submission.

------
rusbus
I was surprised to see that they track every app I open on my phone. Anyone
know if that can be disabled?

~~~
whoisjuan
Same here. WTF! That's some next level bullshit. How does even Apple allow
that? They must be leveraging a phone API because it's tracking the name of
the binary. So not only Google has access to this data but virtually any app
installed in my phone.

~~~
nielsbot
It's not an Android phone?

~~~
whoisjuan
No. iPhone.

------
donttrack
Its funny how I regularly have to visit this page and delete new stuff.

This time it shows my activity on the Google Play developer console all the
way back to a couple of years ago. That wasn't there last time I went to empty
their spy machine trashcan.

~~~
ChrisAntaki
Have you tried just pausing history instead?
[https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

~~~
tdewitt
That's what I've done. Someone recently mocked me for using DDG instead of
google and I explained that I did it to keep my data store shown by this link
empty. I check regularly to make sure nothings new is turned on. Happy to
always find it empty.

------
Yetanfou
No searches, no location, no device data, no Youtube history, no suggestions,
no synchronised data... ghee, it is almost as if not using that Google account
other than for accessing a Gmail account (which I only use for backup
purposes) and blocking those cookies works...

It might be interesting to know that I use many Android devices, phones and
tablets both. As those things all run without proprietary Google bits, Google
does not have anything interesting to show me. I might miss out on some
potentially handy services but that is a small price to pay for keeping my
devices and my data under my control.

------
etu
I tend to not be logged in for the times I use their search engine. This is
easily achieved by using the tab containers in Firefox. So for my mail, I'm
logged in in a tab container. So when I go searching at their search engine, I
just press Ctrl-t to open a tab (which isn't the same container as I'm logged
in) and search.

I was surprised of how little data they had just by doing this.

------
saintPirelli
What surprises me the most is how much stuff on there - while maybe factually
true - is actually wrong. _" 1 card in your feed; Sports - viewed"_ No I
didn't, at least not knowingly. _" Viewed Gmail ads "_, I checked my mail,
yes, but I couldn't tell if there were ads or whether I looked at them.

------
PokemonNoGo
The "okey google" while screen of had some very funny recordings of me there
from my former pixel. I did turn it off but for some reason it had snippets of
me saying "fucking frying pan shit" and "no the hot dogs there suck" in
Swedish. That's not really close to "okey google" at all...

~~~
meerasri
Hi

~~~
meerasri
Hello

------
kureikain
By using something like this:
[https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts)

I have effectived block lots of analytic service. I can see how well it works
when I open Chrome Dev Tool aand see bunch of console error due to js tracking
fail to load.

------
hippich
I recently started actively using profiles feature in Chrome. At first because
it was convenient to keep each profile on each own KDE activity, but after
awhile I started to use separate profiles for anonymous browsing, testing
various chrome extension testing, throwaway-ish social accounts, etc.

Highly recommend it - super convenient.

------
flukus
I disabled most of it 12 months ago, not just because of privacy but because
they were continually in my face attempting to make the data useful through
google now. Through no prompting google worked out where I lived and would
"notify" me of my commute time every morning, except it didn't realize I was
taking PT and traffic didn't affect me. Every time I had lunch at the train
station it would notify me of train delays, even though I wasn't catching the
train and had already left the station. More than once it notified me of a
delayed flight that wasn't really delayed. So all the data I was giving to
google was a net negative to me.

Disabling everything is only the start though because google does a really
poor job of actually respecting this. The maps app is constantly prompting me
to re-enable the tracking. I'm forever one dark pattern or one urgent "just
f-ing work" instance away from re-enabling this tracking. For most cases It's
easier to give up google products entirely rather than be eternally and
infallibly vigilant when I use my phone.

------
Tenoke
I found this summary of what they track (or what you can export) pretty
succinct.
[https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977559925680467968](https://twitter.com/iamdylancurran/status/977559925680467968)

------
thaumasiotes
Huh, I guess I was surprised.

It's exclusively Youtube, which I use logged in to get the benefit of history
tracking. Every so often I clear my history, but apparently searches (again...
Youtube searches, there's nothing else here) don't get cleared when you do
that.

I see no real problems here.

------
yaegers
I use gmail and search for stuff. That is about it. And because of that, I
only log in like once a day into gmail, check mails and log out. Why would I
want to stay logged in after that? This site only showed me that it knows
nothing about me which is intended.

------
khedoros1
I see my Youtube views. Shortly after getting my first Android phone, I got
creeped out by a link like this (and the phone's "helpful" suggestions for
products and services) and asked them to stop tracking everything that I could
find an option for.

------
emerged
I delete my Google activity every few weeks. This allows usage of features
which they require you to enable tracking for, but keeps your information
relatively private in the long term. It'd be nice to have this done
automatically somehow.

------
nareiber
I remember stumbling upon a grey background google menu on my... droid
whatever and disabling all of this. Very creepy. Looks like it's still holding
the preference after at least two new phones. I like that part.

------
x0x
Stop using sites that collect and/or sell your data. Good email replacement is
TutaNota or ProtonMail. Good search engine replacement is DuckDuckGo.

~~~
beenBoutIT
DuckDuckGo may be the best non-Google search engine but it's nowhere near
anything even remotely resembling a "good" Google replacement. There is no
such thing.

------
mirimir
Given that I have no Google account, they won't say.

But that's actually protecting my privacy, so hey.

------
senectus1
I find it amusing to trawl through all the .wav files of me activating the
google assistant.

------
pasta
Isn't the real question: how much data does Google sell about you?

------
hueving
Tracking each area of Google maps I look at was surprising.

------
hiergiltdiestfu
What's that supposed to be? A pitch ala "But LOOK, Google is collecting data,
too, not just me, Facebook!"

------
throwmeaway444
Facebook has nothing on Google.

