Google Tracks You 24/7: Stop It with These Methods
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - All our internet activities are monitored by service providers. This includes Google, which oversees search activities on its platform.
The data obtained reads users’ habit patterns and interests. This data collection can come from clicks, purchases, or likes made by users.
From there, Google collects the data and sells it to advertisers. Users receive relevant advertisements, which is the company’s largest revenue source.
Users can actually stop this practice. Here is how to stop Google from collecting our data, quoted from Cnet:
Open the Google.com page from a desktop or mobile browser
Log in to your Google account
Select the Manage your Google Account menu
In Privacy & Personalisation, select Manage your Data & Personalisation
Next, scroll down to see the Activity Controls menu, select Manage your Activity Controls
Next, you will see a box named Web & App Activity, slide the toggle to turn it off
And a notification will appear confirming that the user understands what is being done by disabling the setting, then select Pause.
It should be noted that the advertisements presented will be less relevant when you stop this practice. You will also no longer get a personalised experience while surfing the web.
In addition, stored user data will not disappear when tracking is turned off. The method explained earlier will be useful in the future, as there will be no more data collection practices.
Data Collected by Google
Several data collected by Google relate to user references. This data is collected in products or services such as Gmail, Search, and the Android phone used by the user.
This is a list of data collected by the company, quoted from CNBC International:
• Name, gender, and date of birth
• Personal mobile phone number
• Searches on Google
• Sites visited
• What users like, from sports to favourite food and drinks
• Workplace
• Residence
• Videos watched
You can also find out what data is collected by each Google product. See how below:
Types of Advertisements of Interest
You can find out the topics of advertisements liked according to Google by logging into your account and clicking the Manage Ads Settings menu. There, data such as gender, age, and advertisements that have been blocked will be visible.
Places Visited
Location data of places visited by users will enter the Google Location History Page. This data is stored in Google Maps.
YouTube Activity
All YouTube activities are also collected and can be viewed by users. You just need to access it through the Search and YouTube Watch features.
Delete Internet History
You can delete your digital footprint so as not to be tracked on the internet. This method can be applied by deleting the browsing history in the browser.
Here are the steps:
- Google Chrome
Open the menu and select Settings. Select Privacy & Security and continue by clicking Clear browsing data.
In that menu, select the time period you want to delete. Finally, click Clear data.
- Mozilla Firefox
Enter the menu by clicking the three horizontal line symbol. Select Settings > Privacy & Security and scroll down to Cookies & Site Data.
You can delete all data and manage the data you want to delete. If you don’t want to do it, you can check the contact to delete browsing data every time you close Firefox.
- Safari
First, enter the menu, then Clear History. You can select the time range you want to delete and click Clear History.
- Microsoft Edge
Windows 11 users just press the three dots icon on the right and select the Settings menu. Enter the Privacy menu, continue to Clear browsing data, and click Choose what to clear.
Determine the data you want to delete from the list. Next, click Clear Now.
- Opera
You just need to enter the Settings icon and find Privacy & Security next to Browsing data. Next, click Clear, select the type of data you want to delete and specify the time period, finally click Clear Data.