
How to find and delete data Google keeps about you - rahuldottech
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/google-keeps-a-scary-amount-of-data-on-you-heres-how-to-find-and-delete-it/
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meowface
Funny that this is from CNET, notorious for bundling all of their download.com
software with adware and spyware.

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used74838362
To big tech, tech news and media, privacy is just propaganda

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hedora
Did you hear the joke about the guy that successfully opted out of Google
tracking?

He got run over by a Waymo.

Seriously though, anyone who understands Google’s ad business (and ancillary
businesses, like Waymo and Nest) knows they will never voluntarily provide a
complete opt-out to data tracking.

On the bright side, I used to bike commute near their self driving cars. They
certainly have GB’s of 3D full body scans of me wearing spandex. I hope it
gives their AI nightmares.

~~~
shadowgovt
> knows they will never voluntarily provide a complete opt-out to data
> tracking

In the sense that they lack the will or in the sense that it's a technical
impossibility? I think there's a lot of detail in the definition of the term
"complete opt-out to data tracking" that needs clarification to evaluate a
statement like that.

(For one thing, your Waymo joke is kinda serious. ;) )

~~~
used74838362
In the sense that as nobody can ever know for sure if they did, or prove they
didn't, than they will never do

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Lendal
This article says that holding your location history is creepy but holding
your search history is harmless and you should let them do it.

I find the opposite is true. I have no use for my search history, but I like
to see my timeline to help me remember. I have a bad memory. Looking up past
events, trips I took, places I've been and the context of my old photos is
important to me.

So my question is, why does CNET want me to delete my timeline but not my
search and app usage history? My location data is of no use to them, (but it
is of use to me,) so location data is "creepy" but my search history is very
important to keep? Huh? Why exactly? Why do I need to remember that 2 months
ago I searched for "python ppa ubuntu"? Useless. Delete it please.

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mceachen
PSA: Before you delete your location history, please consider downloading it
for personal use later, via Google Takeout. Several tools (that you host) may
make that data useful/interesting to you (especially for
trips/vacations/events).

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TimWestergren
Would you mind elaborating on the “several tools” that you’re referring to?
I’d like to learn more about this.

~~~
mceachen
There are a couple tools that will extrapolate your location from a bunch of
location sources and apply it, to, for example, images and videos that don't
have direct GPS metadata. The only tool I've used is
[https://exiftool.org/geotag.html](https://exiftool.org/geotag.html)

(I'm a huge fan of ExifTool: I wrote both the ruby and node wrappers for it!)

FWIW I will be adding this location extrapolation to PhotoStructure at some
point soon, as all my dSLR images don't have GPS tags.

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izacus
The article starts with this sentence:

"Whether you have an iPhone ( $699 at Apple ) or Android phone, Google Maps
logs everywhere you go, the route you take to get there, when you arrive and
what time you leave -- even if you never open the app."

Where iPhone link actually is an affilate link to Apple Store which (I assume)
pays money to CNet for advertising it.

Am I the only one that considers this a bit suspect? Especially in an article
that's talking about Apple's competitor?

~~~
mceachen
I agree it's suspect, but the link may have been auto-added by the publishing
system, not by the author (disclaimer: I helped build their product catalog
and taxonomy tools a long time ago).

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curiousgal
All it probably does is switch a Deleted field to True.

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throwaway1777
Just in case you want to get it back some day!

~~~
shadowgovt
You joke, but accidental deletion of critical information is more common than
desired deletion of sensitive information, which is exactly why services have
soft deletion: most users want it.

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hairofadog
I’m curious about how they make use of their knowledge of multiple accounts.
In Chrome and the Gmail app they definitely understand that these x accounts
belong to the same person, and I imagine there’s some kind of Uber-profile on
me.

I keep waiting for the day I’m filling out one of their captchas and after a
couple failed attempts it’ll say, “c’mon, (my actual name), you know what a
traffic light looks like”.

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> I’m curious about how they make use of their knowledge of multiple accounts.
> In Chrome and the Gmail app they definitely understand that these x accounts
> belong to the same person, and I imagine there’s some kind of Uber-profile
> on me.

At the beginning they actively discouraged these, but in the end they gave up
and make multiple personal profiles supported. Of course the have our uber-
profile, after all, I situations where multiple Gmail accounts in one phone
are shared by different people must be extremely rare. So I guess they
embraced it and try to learn more about the user by analyzing how these
different accounts are used.

~~~
shadowgovt
Whether or not they use it for aggregate tracking, it's necessary for fraud
detection. Creating a thousand ghost accounts to multiply the force of an
attack via (or upon) Google services is "black hat 101."

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aszantu
So you click a few buttons and trust that they do what you want them to do.
Google could just say they delete that data and still keep and sell it, there
is no way of really knowing.

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nothrabannosir
That would open them up to costly litigation, especially under GDPR. Not
saying "companies never break the law", just that doing it this explicitly is
a much higher risk profile to them. That, in turn, makes it less likely
they'll do it.

~~~
Nextgrid
They are already not compliant with the GDPR.

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hiram112
It's pretty easy to go to the main privacy settings and turn off all tracking
and also 'delete' whatever info they've accumulated. I tend to do that every
month or to, as Google's dark patterns on my phone or some other site almost
always turn them back on, especially location.

Regardless, it seems like a pointless exercise. Besides the easier to find
'privacy' settings that Google makes available, you can actually request to
download ALL the data Google has on you. Last time I tried, I filled out the
form and the reply is that Google will need almost a week of time to gather
the data, upon which they sent me a link to download a massive (several GB)
log file.

So let me get this straight. I supposedly deleted ALL my data in the privacy
settings. Just five minutes later I can then download the GB of data they
still have on me?

I'm guessing the easier to find privacy settings don't do much at all except
delete some advertiser ID that is used a primary key in their main caches,
used with cookies and on Android.

On the other hand, using more complex analytics, they could easily put
together a profile of every single bit of data they've got on my for the last
10 years.

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skinnymuch
That’s not all the data on you. That’s all the obvious visible sort of data.

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einpoklum
> but you can wipe the slate clean with these steps.

That subtitle is misinformation, and so is the underlying premise of much of
that story, as:

1\. All of the data Google collects is passed on to the NSA (if not also
elsewhere), which will obviously not delete it.

2\. The fact that the information stops appearing as part of your account does
not mean it is properly deleted from Google's servers for their own internal
use (and perhaps more 3rd party sharing).

3\. The results of _processing_ your collected personal data - even mildly -
are not part of what you see on your profile, and you're not issuing a command
to delete all that.

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UncleMeat
> All of the data Google collects is passed on to the NSA (if not also
> elsewhere), which will obviously not delete it.

This is obviously false, given that the Snowden leaks showed the NSA literally
tapping wires between Google datacenters. They wouldn't need to do this if
everything was shipped to the NSA already.

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fit2rule
The NSA got caught with its hand in the cookie jar, and instead of taking it
out, just made a deal with the cookie chef to share crumbs without anyone
knowing, coz "national security", etc.

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chopin
I'd be interested to see what they know about me if I don't have an account.

~~~
fsajkdnjk
assuming no smartphone in this scenario, every time you visit any o their
services you are being tracked via ip and headers you sent(referrer for
example). this way they can build a profile, even if they do not have your
personal details. you think you are "safe" if you do not use their services
but 99% of websites use their google analytics, cdn or social widgets/sharing
buttons... which allows them to track you. so the only way to avoid this
breach of privacy is to keep your hosts file updated and never let your
browser access any of their websites. i would also be concerned with their dns
over http now.

facebook is the same but due to its nature it does it only via its social
sharing widgets that people put on their websites and the embedded comments
and things like that.

google's cdn is the most dangerous of these things.

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FrozenSynapse
But why?!

